Beginings
by IWishIMay
Summary: A young canine... broken friends. And just like that, the fun begins. [AU] please R&R [Rated for violence]
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own Redwall.

Okay. I'll try this one on here. Tell me what you think?

Prologue

The fires had burned like the pits of hell overnight.  
Smoke, black as the darkest corner of a beast's soul covered the night sky in thick clouds, blocking out the stars. The moon, only new, didn't even try to show up, yet Mars could be seen as a red dot, just barely peaking through.

The small home had burned down to the ground.  
Now, in the early morning, Aozora Kaneda sat on the curb of the dusty street, his tears dry on his cheeks and leaving streaks down to his chin. His head hurt with a dull throb that had caused him to stop crying in the first place, but he found it so, so hard.

He'd watched them die.

His mother and father, his cherished parents that would give the shirts off of their backs and the food from their pockets wherever they went, the two who were the most generous of any conceited aristocrat in this place- it seemed so wrong for someone to come along and order a hit on their house.

Kaneda's mind kept wandering back to those dark thoughts. He'd come in the house from playing outside with the few pigeons and ducks in the yard so that he could wash his hands and get ready to go to bed.  
By the time he entered, the room felt like some presence was bending its walls. Through the dark hallways, he thought that it was so quiet that his heart could be heart like a drum. There was something, or someone, here in the shadows, penetrating him with their gaze.  
"M...mama?" he said, his voice high and wavering. The five year old kept walking, passing by his room and going to check in the den.

It was in shreds.  
The chairs, the carpet, the polished wood floor, the banners and hangings, the dressers and desks, even the futon and glass lamps - all shredded with knives and rocks from slings.  
There was chair in the middle of the room, that he could see, with a tall back and several darts and weapon-ammo stuck into it.  
Peering closer, he suddenly found that he didn't want to see what was in it, its back to him. Hulking shapes in the dark laughed and jeered as they skulked and scurried around the room, their bodies covered by cloaks and their faces having wooden masks of some fantasy figure.  
"Our job here is done," said one with the only colored mask, a red one. "The vixen put up too much of a fight and died before we had time to have any real fun with her, so, to make up, I'll let you all go to the local brothel tonight, 'cause ye've got to admit - that was one fine peice o' arse."  
His gang sniggered wickedly, and other calls rang out.  
"Ar, we're done with this 'un, then," said another, his mask blank as the others. He raised his boot and kicked the chair around.  
The heavy chair fell with a thump to the floor, showing quite clearly what its carion fruit was doing in limp repose, no response or movement coming from it, no more spark in its blank eyes that seemed to see into the other world.

Kaneda bit the inside of his cheek to suppress a scream.

Forever. Those eyes would haunt him.  
The eyes of his father as they stared into him, beyond him. The eyes of his mother, who stared up at the ceiling from where she lay on the floor, clouded and filmed over.  
The nightmares would haunt him forever...

Sniffing and wiping his eyes with a paw, the tiny fox stood up. If he stayed on the side any longer, he was sure to be run over by a horse or something.  
There were plenty of back alleys to go to, but they were full of the morning's mist, and he couldn't see anything that was on the other end.  
And he felt very apprehensive now about walking into dark places without knowing what was on the other side...


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Day One

Eeeh. The first was short 'cause it was a teaser... sorta... well, here I go. Ooh! And thank you 'storiewriter' for my first review!  


Aozora had to admit - the others here could be friendly, but very vicious to high born types like himself.  
The moment that he'd walked five steps into the alley, he was immediately pounced upon by several other vermin children from 10 to 14 years of age. With their claws and teeth, they stripped him down and out of his rich clothing and tossed him a blanket while they themselves tried on his clothes.  
"Don't I just look absolutely grand, boys?" said the leader, a young stoat with very long eyelashes.  
He was not the oldest, or the tallest, but he did have a fit build to him for one so young, and a tattoo of a lightning bolt racing down his hip, which was clearly exposed considering that he was wearing nothing more than trousers that had long since given up the ghost in tatters and peices, held up by two long straps that went over his shoulders like suspenders, leaving his chest bare.  
The others laughed and poked and made jokes.  
"Wow, you look ready to see the mighty Emperor, you do!"  
"Yes, don't he look like a fine gennlbeast!"  
Some of the girls, naked and filthy like the others save for bits of cloth and scavenged clothing, looked like the males - they added in their say.  
"Aw," said one enormous girl, yet obviously sunken through with starvation, "what a handsome and dashing figure ye cut!" Then she went serious. "Rala...will you...marry me?"  
Everyone fell into a fit of laughter, but Rala the stoat leader hardly blushed as he said, "I'm only reserved for fine ladies - you heaps o' trash don't count" and was immediately bombarded by giggling girls trying to beat him up.  
One of them strayed out from the bunch and helped Kaneda to his feet.  
"Come on now, you poor thing," she crooned. She was a vixen with light fur, but her bones shoed through, and her beauty of a skeleton was remarkable. She would be nothing more than a corpse had it not been for her eyes, which shone like the deepest well and made him want to cry.  
"Aw, don't do that," she said, brushing away a few of the threatening tears. "It's time to wake up, little one. The world is crueller than you think."

They tagged along behind the group through the mist.  
Swirling and white, like small walls of clouds sliding across the ground, Aozora could not see where he was going.  
Several times, he'd lose sight of the still chattering crew of youngbeasts, and had it not been for their talking, or the young vixen leading him by the paw, he was sure that he would have been lost.  
"So...you ever been on the street before? No? Well, this is the perfect time to start." She giggled. "By the way, I'm Valon. My real name used to be Crescta."  
"Why'd you change it?" said Kaneda timidly. She smiled at him, and he was grateful for the dark fur that hid most of his blush.  
"I had to give up everything I ever owned - my house, my parents, my money, and my name." She cocked her head. "So, what's your name?"  
"I'm Kaneda," he mumbled shyly. "Aozora Kaneda."  
"Is that some other language?" she mused curiously, her eyes clouded over. "I mean, I know what 'Aozora' means...'Blue Sky'... but the other one sounds vaguely familiar..."  
She stared off into space for a while in an almost unnerving silence as their strangely silent pawsteps padded through the misty alley.  
"No matter," she concluded with a cheerful smile. "You'll like our den - its the warmest berth 'round here for pebbles."

They walked on until Rala suddenly appeared out of the mist, inches from Aozora's own nose.  
Little Ao yipped in surprise.  
"Now, I ain't gonna ask you where you're from, 'cause apparently, it don't matter now," he said grimly, eyes narrowed, but not with suspicion or hatred. "You have a choice between who you join up with, but since we found ye first, and we're your best chance, you'd better stay with us, y'here?"  
Aozora nodded vigorously, trembling, when Valon put a paw around his shoulders and drew him close. Being so small and young, he only barely came up to her bare belly.  
"Don't be such a killjoy," she said, her smile reaching to her bright eyes. "I'm quite sure that he'll stay; won't you?" she said, looking down at him. Aozora looked back up into her eyes and nodded bashfully.  
"See." She hauled him up onto her back, hitched him up a little to adjust the weight, then started walking again.  
"C'mon, Rala me ol' fruitcake," she said good-naturedly, waggling her ears round her head.  
Rala stared after them for a moment as they went ahead. For a moment, the dark look dropped from his face to be replaced with a look of fondness. Then it was gone to leave his regular, narrow-eyed, contemplating and focused look as he went on to follow.

"Wow, you never know what they give out some times," said Valon, tearing into a compost pile. She winked at Aozora and called, "Hey Mina, jump in!"  
Mina, a creamy white ferret, took a running leap and landed with a moist thud in the steaming, smelly heap.  
The gang (there were at least ten present) each jumped in and slathered themselves with the compost except Aozora.  
He was a little apprehensive about the others, though he knew he shouldn't fear them.  
Valon solved the problem by sliding down the immense pile, covered in stinking muck, and grasping Aozora by the scruff of his neck and brush.  
"In you go, Ao!"  
WHOOSH!  
SPLAT!  
Aozora landed face-firstinto the steaming pile of compost.  
Blind for a moment, he tunneled his way up desperately through the moist fertilizer and discarded until he hit the air.  
He sucked it in and found that it seemed very chilly. Taking several more breaths, he dove back down through the repulsive material, back towards the warmth, where he made a pocket of air that would let him breathe for about two minutes.  
There was some scrabbling beside him, and then Valons face was thrust into the pocket of air.  
"Wotcher, Ao!" she giggled madly. "Expand your air pocket to as long at your brush and just as deep."  
Aozora turned around in the compost until he had his tail sticking up through the hole he'd made, then measured around until he'd done what she said.  
The soily material filled back in on itself like sand, soft and full of air bubbles.  
"There ye are," whispered Valon, grinning in the dark. "Shallow breathing for about thirty minutes, I'd say."  
Reaching into one of the walls, she pulled out some fruit peels and handed the smaller peices, the softer ones, to Aozora.  
"For little ones like you," she giggled (though hardly older than thriteen), "the softest parts are the best, until you are old enough to chew through the harder bits."  
Aozora took her word for it and tried it.  
The orange peel was still intact and a little juicy, but it taste dabsolutely gross, so that he almost spit it out.  
But he kept a straight face. His hunger was immense, and who knew when his next meal might be?  
Valon watched him through glowing vulpine eyes as she chewed upon the chewy orange rinds.  
"Get that down yer gob now, Kahnny," she said softly, still smiling. "Tonight, we might be in luck. The Vole farm might be open yet, and the ships are comin' in from the islands like, bringin' all manner of fresh food - maybe we'll have meat tonight."

For the next two hours, the gang rummaged through the compost heaps until they could find nothing more to sate their terrible hunger, before marching off toward the creek.  
It was a little off of the city, towards the outskirts and farms, where a great tree was staked in place from one end of the creek to the other.  
As they walked down the dusty path, Kaneda noticed how thin they looked.  
Valon was wearing a tattered skin skirt over her breeches and a pitiful scrap of cloth across her chest, also in shreds. Her wrists and ankles were wrapped in once-white bandages and brown leather straps, like guards. Aozora wondered what they could possibly be for.  
Holding up her skirt and breeches was a length of rope and a jacket tied in a knot in front.  
Her bare middle was sunken through until her ribs poked out. In fact, now that he looked at it, everyone seemed to be starving. They were emaciated, and little more than walking corpses with clumps of matted fur still attached to their sunken frames.  
The creek walls were slimy and muddy with clay, moss, and mold. Aozora fairly skidded down on his brush with such ease that he could have been a banana peel.  
He hit the water with a muddy splash. The creek's water had swollen during the Days of Rain, which were still not over.  
The same mists that hung around the paths and houses and alleys every morning scudded about on the murky water here under the shelter of the criss-crossing branches of the trees and tall bushes, making this a fairly seclued spot save for the way they came in. The foliage wasso tightly knit together that it could have been a wall, like dike trees, and the bridge had not been used for years.  
Valon splashed about in the water beside him, muddy from nose to tailtip. She inhaled a gulp of air, then sank under the depths, then came back up again and held out her paw.  
Aozora looked.  
In her paw were many grey large, grey shells.  
One of them opened its clampp and a long, thick, white thing oozed out for a moment and moved the whole case so that it trembled atop the others.  
Aozora jumped back, startled. Valon laughed.  
"They're just river clams, silly," she said. "The river by here runs into a tributary, then stops at this creek to the side, here. Every time the waters swell, the clams come in, and we bring 'em in our nets for the pickin'. Watch."  
She removed a knife from her rope belt, then hurled one of the clams at a rock.  
It shattered to peices with a series of clacks.  
Wading over, she scraped out the contents into the undamaged upper shell, cut it up, stuck a peice on the blade, then passed it to Kaneda.  
Kaneda reached for the peice and popped it in.  
Not good, not bad, but definitely...soft.  
"There's a trick to it," she said. "If you do it just right, the adrennaline won't make it tough and chewy. Well, some parts at least. When you catch 'em off guard, they are very soft and edible."  
She ate a few herself, then showed him the wall of clay.  
"Farther down, where the macaws live at, is where all the best clay is, and we steal it from them sometimes, though its very dangerous. Clay" she said, cutting out a tiny block of it with the knife "is very high in nutrition."  
As incredible as all of this was sounding, Aozora really didn't have a choice against what was to be eaten and what wasn't. His stomach was gurgling like the hounds of the underworld, and he chewed upon it until it was good to swallow.  
Some of the clay had swirled into the waters, so it also was good to drink.

For the next few hours, he was shone all the best plants and weeds to eat, what tadpoles to catch, and how to handle the crawdad's claws without being chopped to mince meat.  
After the third hour, the gang played some water games, tossing around a ball of weeds and mud while on each other's shoulders, then played a game of hide and seek, and finally finished to the sunset by hauling themselves out of the water and onto a great white rock beneath the bridge. The bridge itself was covered in long sheets of hanging moss that hung around them like a thick curtain.  
They drew on the light grey rock with charcoal sticks and dye from berries and shells and stolen pottery.  
Aozora munched upon some of the clam that he'd managed to catch for himself; it was nowhere near as soft, but bounced off of his teeth like fleshy rubber, but was still very good tp hir rumbling stomach.  
After a time, Rala stood and led the gang back down the path to the blacksmith's shop.

"Please, sir," said Valon with her big, pretty eyes. They were full and bright, and shining with innocence.  
Aozora stood by a male fox, Zuri, in the shadows with the others.  
"Watch closely now, 'Zora," he whispered. He pointed toward Valon. "Y'see, ye've got to look all innocent like, and not any threat'nin'."  
As Aozora watched, the blacksmith's assistants let them in to a spot by the forge, where burlap sacks, wood dust and hay were piled up.  
The trudged in as the sun went down and spread out around the fire on the hearth, talking and giggling and chattering to each other as they snuggled up against their neighbor.  
The kindly attendants (though still looking weary and clutching a horsewhip and poker in case of trouble) set down some bird meat and apples with a trough of cold water from the river on the hearth, and one large hot loaf of bread.  
The gang each waited for Rala, the mathematically instructed one of them all, to split the peices equally.  
Rala did, using his long dirk, until everyone had the same portion except Aozora.  
"Since you're new tonight, we have to wean you just a little bit for the first few nights. Then, you'll be on regular rations like the rest of us. Conserve it well, though, now; it might be a while until we get food again."  
"What about the ships coming in to port?" said Zuri. "They should be bringing things in somewhere northwest up the coast."  
Aozora studied Zuri for a moment while he bit into the poultry. He guessed it was some kind of fat pigeon or hen.  
Zuri was strong and lithe, but starved like the others. His fur was grey, but his stocking marks had been dyed a deep shade of blue and violet, artistically squiggly stripes. On one side of his face was a dark mark, like a knife scratch, long since healed. His eyes were a beautiful dark brown, and he was, if anyone realy had a say in it, the most handsome looking male vulpine of the group.  
Rala sat up, straight-backed and scholarly looking with his paws clasped in his lap. He had removed the belts so that they tied around his waist, and tucked into that was a blanket that resembled a kilt or skirt to protect his legs, a rule - the major veins and muscles could not be exposed when crossing through enemy territory, in case of attack.  
"Yes, they will be here tomorrow," he said, drawing a figure in the ashes on the flagged stone. "See this here - this is where they come in, at the taverns. Those merchants always have something or other to trade, and I bet they've come back from the Wilder lands with exotic goods."  
Valon noticed Aozora's head lean to the side curiously.  
"Silk and delicacies, like eel and rice and ivory and waterproof cloth; weapons and food and gold and silver and copper and such, y'know," she explained to him in a whisper.  
"But," said Rala, pointing with the bladetip, "nowadays, they've got watches everywhere. We won't be able to approach there to steal nothin' if'n we gets caught. And there are only so many of us to spare...there aren't any, really," he said, looking over the group fondly.  
"We can still try," interjected a burly weasel with an X shaped scar across his shoulder. "We can't go completely hungry. We might just have a chance."  
"But what about the other gang?" interjected Valon. "If we all leave for this, they'll be sure to notice that we've left. Their territory is right between us and the coast."  
Rala was silent for a moment, his expression dark as he came to the decision that he hoped he could somehow avoid.  
"I've told you all to stay away from there, but, if things do come down to dirty, we will have to fight them for the last time."  
He turned his head slowly to look at each one of them meaningfully. The two words he spoke sent shivers down Aozora'a spine.  
"No survivors."


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: The Ports**

Aozora felt a gentle paw on his back stir him softly from deep slumber.  
His face was pressed into the sacking, and he was on his stomach. It ached with hunger, and for a moment, left him paralyzed. He could not move his stiff limbs, nor have the power to get up and walk.

"C'mon, Kahnny," murmured Valon tenderly, turning him over. "Ye've got to get up and stretch some, every morning. It's always like this for the first few nights that you sleep. Get up; we've got breakfast and something for you to wear."

Painfully, the small child raised himself up from his arms until he was on his elbows, and then further up until he was on his knees.

Valon took his paw and helped him to his feet. Whipping out her blade, she tossed a long curtain over his head and wrapped it around him like a mantle; then, using two heavy sacks, she cut them and stitched them with a bone needle and thread until he had a pair of breeches.

"Here's some rope to hold those up," she said, extending it to him. "Wrap the curtain around your waist...good...bunch it up in front a little and tie it like this, so that it all hangs down...very nice. Now let's tie this 'round here like so, and...there you have it."

She surveyed her handy work. It wasn't bad.

"You'll have to learn to run bare up-top, matey, but otherwise, I think we've got it all covered. Oh yes: take some heavy sacks - no matter, they're too big, I'll get them - and we're on our way."

"Why'd you fill them up with hay?" asked Aozora as he stretched like she showed him.

"We need some of it back at our quarters. It's much more fun than lying in the mud at night."  
She handed him a fistful of jerky."Get that down yer hole, now, and limber up a little more. I'm gonna be teachin' ye the rest of the trade, with Zuri helpin' an all."

"What about the plan you made last night?" Aozora wondered.

"Rala and the rest will deal with that. In fact, that's where we'll be going. We're gonna rendezvous at the other side of the territory, to the coast at the taverns. We'll leave a few behind. We'll have to make sure to go swiftly and silently, though - the others don't like us trespassing, and won't let us go to easily."

"Are there other gangs down at the taverns?" said Ao, becoming a little uneasy. Valon blew a strand of hair out of her face.

"Of course, but they like us, so they may be our allies if it comes to a last resort. But before we go this morning, I'm supposed to teach you a few tricks."Valon strode over to the forge and retreived two wands from the shelf, tossing one to Aozora. He fumbled it, but managed to hold on.

"Now, adopt a ready stance, like I'm doing..."

And it was then that Aozora learned a little bit about the dancing of the blades.

The sun was high in the sky, and there were no mists to be seen today.

No, the seagulls and other birds wheeled and called gaily to the blue skies, painted with fluffy strokes of pure white clouds. The sun was dazzling, lighting up every corner and shadow, and also throwing a few.

Aozora had never really seen a ship up close before. He'd see the tops of them whenever they came in to port, but from a distance.

Now, as he stalked around the darkened buildings in the enemy territory, he could already see the masts, and was imagining with glee what it would be like to stand right next to those giants.

Why he could see them from such a low level was because the houses were jammed together quite hard, so that it really was a simple thing to jump to one roof and then another, and get higher and higher until it was fairly simple to see those tall masts and billowing canvas sails. Rala and Zuri settled in front of everyone else on the roof of one house silently. Everyone had crossed the territory by following the rof bridges safely, yet there were only five of them - Rala, Zuri, Valan, Aozora, and the burly weasel that he'd see from last night, Naska.

They'd each been given a weapon: Rala had his dirk and a long straight sword; Zuri had a selection of paw-made blades and a scimitar; Naska had a katana and dagger; and Aozora had a dagger and cutlass.

Aozora didn't know much about weaponry, but he figured that Valon's weapon, a wooden sword, would not be of much use to anyone. It was a finely crafted thing in a polished wooden sheath, with a leather cord that she used to strap it over her shoulder. All of these had to have been taken from the merchant ships at some point in time - these weapons looked too well taken care of, too expensive to even handle, and yet, here they were.

He glanced at her several times with a questioning look, but she only smiled gently at him and paid attention to Rala. Aozora noticed that the others were not surprised or worried about her choice of weapon, and decided that he should pay attention too. He only knew so much now, but his apprehensiveness was beginning to rise into fear. It would not do for him to forget any training if things got rough.

Rala did a few quick calculations, then turned to his team.  
"'Kay then. Valon, stay with Ao and just hang out - I'll give the signal if we need you. Zuri and Naska, you come with me, but everyone keep the profiles as low as you can - some of the people out here know us, so stay away from the taverns farthest to the back.

"Valon, I'm counting on you to watch Ao and stay in the marketplace. Try to bring any food that you can, alright?"

"Right," everyone chorused.

"You two, I'll explain the rest as we go. Move out." Rala jumped off the rooftop, followed by the rest. Aozora hesitated. That was a long way down.

"C'mon, Ao," called Valon cheerfully. "Jut arch your back and keep your arms out when you fall, and land on your toes...ah, almost."

Aozora had landed almost perfectly, and before he had time to register that he'd just pulled it off, he overbalanced and fell on his rear end.

Valon was chuckling. "Ne'er the first time, matey. Let's go check out the marketplace!"

The marketplace was lined with cobblestones for streets, and hard packed dirt ones as well.  
Colorful tents and shacks with shades raised on poles were on either side, with barrels and crates of wares.

Pretty girls danced and sang upon small raised platforms, either ragged or rich.

"Those are gypsies," Valon whispered to Aozora's wondering eyes, bright with wonderment at their exotic beauty. "They travel around, and they're magical, y'know...spells and healin' an such. My mother's mum was a gypsie. That's how I know all I do."

Gold coins clinked as they hit the platforms for the dancers.

"Wow, are they really that good?"

"Yep, an' they'll trick ye in a minute - that's why a lot of 'em are foxes. But if yer friends with one or the family, they'll look after ye, you can be sure o' that. Even if you did get torn to peices by some sort of predator, or had so many knives in ye that you didn't have an inch of fur space, they'd put you back together again in no time in less than a week, medicine an spells an all."

They rounded the corner, where the crowd was beginning to spill into the street.  
Aozora noticed that Valon rubbed or bumped into some people, and at first, he thought that the crowd was so tight that she just couldn't get through, but then she pulled him out of the crowd and showed him the bags of silver and gold.

"Wh-where'd you get all that?" he said increduosly, eyes wide. She flicked her ears cheerfully.

"I picked 'em. I'll show you how sometime, an' we'll all have fun, no?"

"Yes," he breathed.

They picked up some woven baskets and began to visit the food sections, where large open crates held every assortment of fruits and vegetables and meat and herbs, many of which Aozora had never seen before, like pears and tomatoes and -

"What's that one?" he asked, pointing to the yellow oblong.

"That there is a banana," said Valon. "The skins are uckyslushable, but if you peel 'em, there's this nice, soft, sweetish flesh on the inside. They're not good with their ripe and green like that, though that is the best time to buy the buggers. When they're brown, ever so slightly, they's the best to eat, all sweet like, y'know."

Aozora looked at a pineapple sideways

"D'y'know, I never really learned how to open one of these," she said, laying out her curtain around her waist like a mat on the sandy beach under a palm tree. "I think you peel the tykes...I'll tell you now, there ain't a sword been crafted that kin slice through a pineapple. The armored fruit lets no one defeat 'im, or so I've heard. But they is awfully sweet, if you succeed."

They began to open coconuts.

"Hehe, it looks like a face," said Aozora, peeling the "hairs" off of the brown ball. Valon took his cutlass and positioned it over the cocnut.

"Yep, it does, an' that's the key to openin' them."

SWISH! CRACK!

"Whoa!"

"Enjoy," Valon smirked, passing one half to him. The coconut milk was strangley satisfying, as was the flesh. Not good, not bad, but very satisfying to his growling stomach.

"Y'see, we've got a lot of good money in this here pouch," she mentioned, tossing the bag on the ground and lying back. "We'll go into the market again after we're done with the coconuts, and maybe we'll find something real good to eat, huh?"

Aozora nodded, nose buried in the fruit. He wanted to go back very, very much, and he told this to Valon.

Valon only snorted.

"For the next few years of your life, if we ever do get out of this mess, you'll be wishin' that fiercely, matey," she said, staring up at the immense white slouds in the sky. "You never want to go if you don't have any money, an' if you steal, you could be executed on the spot for stealin'. It ain't pretty."

She took a slurp and a munch out of the coconut, then tossed the rest to a flock of seagulls not too far from their little camp in the shade.

The palm's leaves provided great shade from the sun, and Aozora was grateful. The sand was almost blinding to see, and it made his eyes water a little.  
Execution - for living?

"Aye," said Valon, as though she could hear his thoughts. "The richer you are, the more that you don't want other people, no matter how poor, to take away even a part of your wealth. Never become a person of very high status unless you know what you're getting into and are prepared to make sacrifices of your own to maintain the good of the world."

The breeze ruffled their bangs, her strands across her deep teal eyes as she sighed, "I wish that Zuri or the other guys could see that. I mean, I know they do an' all, but they all privately come to the same conclusion: life is what you make of it, Ao. Putting out the flames of life, no matter who or what they are, everyone has a spirit or soul that can extinguish. We, so fragile we are on this ever turning world, and so greedy - we want more than we need. What we want, we take, whether it be money, pleasure, drink, or even lives themselves. Anything to have our way.

"Can you see above that, Ao? Can you see between the lines of good and evil and see where we all fit in? There is no real place for us in this world but to exist. If everything was good, and everyone had what they wanted and were happy, sooner or later they would run out and want more and more until they have nothing left, and set to destroy themselves even if they know that it will be their downfall someday.

"We are imperfect," she said, rising and rewrapping the curtain/jacket around her waist. Aozora stood as well, brushing off the sand and hanging on to every word.

"There is not a beast alive that has not committed the acts of greed. I don't even expect you to not have it, because you can see that we are a race consumed by it - we would eat until we exploded, if given the chance. Life is what you make it, and also what others make you into - but only if you have a weak spirit.

"Do you have a weak spirit, Ao? Do you not have something to live for? Do you need a reason to take, kill, or maybe help someone? Are you willing to risk everything for the world around you, to make it better to where everyone can see their errors and try to correct them, from hate and jealousy and bloodlust?"

Aozora kept her words in his head for the rest of his life, and, even when he became older, he still was unable to answer the question

_"Do you have a reason to live?"_


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: All the Difference (Innocence)

Valon and Aozora walked around a bit more, buying this and that until their baskets were nearing upon full.  
They stopped by some fish vendors, who sold them great slabs of the colorful sprites; a nice old mouse traded half of their peaches for a handful of jade and cedar beads.  
Aozora learned how to pickpocket, and found out that it was a skill that took a lot of concentration.  
"Don't be so serious," said Valon as she barely avoided another customer, and handed the tiny pouch over to him. "After a while, thinking is not important, but it becomes an impulse."  
They stopped over at a teahouse for some snacks and another rest in the shade, and found Naska, who they invited over.

Naska was tall, dark, and quiet, but also very patient. Aozora could feel a deep respect for the big weasel.  
Valon leaned over the tabletop and said, "So, how's it going?"  
Naska responded in a voice so low that Aozora almost could not hear him.  
"So far so good. Rala and Zuri have been stealing like crazy on the north-western end of the tavern complexes. It's a wonder of how they're going to get all of that home."  
Aozora sipped his tea. It was a new thing to him, herbal, yet very good. He brushed some stray grains from his whiskers from his riceballs and set to munching a little of the delicacies besides the tiger's milk - snails and eels, caviar, and a wild roasted pig with clumps of watersnake that tasted absolutely delicious.  
Valon swiped a bit off of his plate with a set of maple-wood chopsticks and returned her conversation to Naska, who was sipping his tea silently.  
"But Buguru's crew is in the market today," she said. "I noticed them in the crowds. I think they were making their way towards the back taverns, but they hung out and watched. I think they were waiting for you guys."  
"Mmm," said the stoic warrior. Then, "I saw their ship in port, and I expected to see them pass, but didn't. I bet Rala or Zuri might have, though."  
"When will they be back?"  
"They'll be here in about ten minutes. It looked like they were trying to cook something up with the Gatriton's Crew. The leader, Mezka, didn't look to happy..."

As if on cue, there was the sound of exploding wood nearby, and panicked yells.  
Naska stood up abruptly, as did Aozora and Valon. The noise had made him jump and almost spill his tea.  
Valon slapped down three gold peices - enough to buy three farms apeice and all its cattle - on the table, then grabbed Aozora by the paw and rushed out after Naska.

One of the taverns in between the back and the front was smoking a little from the dust that had just blown out of a decimated door.  
Rala and Zuri stood side-by-side, facing the pirate crew with cold fury.  
Rala approached the pirate crouching on the ground with the broken wrist and stepped on his shoulder, grasping the straightsword over his shoulder.  
"I'm gonna make sure you pay for that, you punk," he said, shadow casting over the whimpering rat.  
The rat, with his eyes hot and whiskers bent, snarled, "It's your fault for even coming here. You little brat, why don't you leave before I -"  
Zuri's foot caught him full in the mouth.  
Aozora gasped as blood spattered on the ground, and the rat began to hack and cough.  
His hair rose on the back of his neck, as though anticipating what was about to happen. The inevitable.  
Rala gave Zuri a sideways glance that Zuri returned with a slight nod, passed him his sword, and with one vicious slice that made Aozora jump again - the blade flashed through the air with a swish - and the rat toppled over, spurting blood from two long gashes going down his body, spilling from his mouth and nose.

Aozora had just seen murder comitted.  
He couldn't look away. He could only stare at the deadbeast before him, hardly daring to believe that he had been alive just seconds ago.

When the rat hit the ground with a thud, it started off the fighting.

"Come on, you sons of bitches," called Rala, Zuri handing his sword back and drawing his scimitar. Rala took up his ready stance. "Who else wants to insult Rala's Gang, eh?"  
And they both rushed at each other with deafening batlle cries.  
The ground ran red with blood and bleeding body parts; the air rent with screams of pain and rage, and Rala and Zuri went at it almost cool and calmly, slicing and weaving, dodging and dancing about as their opponents kept coming.  
It was bloody murder, cruel and yet exciting. Terrible, and yet brilliant at the same time - raining crimson, the music of clashing steel and steel upon flesh, scary, haunting, horrifying...and yet -

Aozora couldn't look away.

With a sudden jolt backwards, Aozora fell back onto his rear just as a blade came hissing over the place where his neck had been just moments before.  
Valon released the scruff of his neck and joined into the fray.  
For a moment, his vision was hazy; and then the thought - how is she going to win with a wooden -

FSHING!

He saw the sword, as if in slow motion as it came free of its polished sheath, the hilt band gleaming white as the sunlight glanced off of its gold filigree, the blade paper thin and polished to the finish, with an edge on it to rival a razor...  
It moved like a flash of lightning as Valon went at it with a furious energy, up and over, down and around, dancing the same dance of death that the others were as well, adding her music of bloodshed to the horrible, yet beautiful melody of the greatest song ever played, Naska by her side...

And then it was over.  
Ninety seconds total, and not an enemy left standing, and hardly a scratch amongst them, the sound of the blades being quickly wiped, then sheathed again to rest until the next spree.

The last pirate was still standing, though without his head. Rala put his foot in his chest and pushed him over without contempt, but more like saying, "Rest on the ground for your journey to the afterlife be easier than you coming into this world."

Aozora sat frozen for a second, and then he felt a gentle paw on his shoulder.  
He found himself looking into Valon's warm eyes, and felt like crying all over again, but he couldn't, he mustn't, or she'd think so little of him, like sitting there during the whole thing wasn't bad enough of a coward...

"Come on, Ao," she said softly. "It's time to go home."  
"If we can," said Rala grimly, licking a shallow scratch on his arm. "At least one of them could have spread the word by now - and that gang, the Harlequins, will be right in our way. Jesse and his younger brat Yattaro won't let us through without a real fight, so I suggest we take what we can and get it over as fast as possible.  
"'Zora and Valon, take what you got and use the roof bridges as usual. We want to avoid a fight with them as much as possible, remember: don't attack unless attacked first."  
"Right," they chorused. Ao said nothing, for his mouth had suddenly gone dry.  
"And also, no prisoners. No one left alive."  
"Right."  
He could feel the trembling creeping up his spine, his insides going cold. He had the feeling that if this did end well, it would be for a high price indeed.

---------------------------

Aozora and Valon climbed the first roof.  
"We'll have to do this at a bit of a run," she explained, hitching the baskets onto her back firmly and checking the buckle on his well. "Go quietly, on your toes, and scrabble with your front paws if you have to. This has become serious."  
Aozora did not think that she looked serious. Her eyes were bright, and her ears perked high, as though she were expecting great adventure.  
Rala signaled them to go with a nod of his head, and they were off, racing across the dips and hills of the rooftops.  
His claws scratched slightly on the tiles as he ran, nervousness fueling him as his breathing became quicker, and he fairly scrambled after Valon as fast as he could go.  
Naska appeared on his side and they all slid down on their tails when they came to a ravine, giving him a slightly stern look to remind him that silence was of the utmost importance.  
They climbed back up, silent and swift as the shadows, and it was all tha Aozora could do to keep up. They were moving with a practiced skill and ease that might one day come to him, jumping and sliding and running and skidding and climbing and crawling so fast that he would have been left behind if not for his building anxiety.  
Almost there...  
He actually believed, for a moment, that they might make it. The end was in sight, where they would jump from this line of houses and onto the other line.  
Almost there...

And then it all went terribly wrong.

Valon and Aozora were in mid leap when something quite large darted in front and blasted between them.  
Valon was momentarily startled and lost focus, but both managed to grab the ledge.  
Aozora was scared to death and grabbed on with all of his claws, chest heaving.  
Valon began to crawl her way up, then help him, but that same blur came out of nowhere again and smashed into the ledge in a shower of splinters and a mad snarl.  
Aozora fell fourteen feet to the ground, hard.  
He rolled over on his side dazedly, the basket preventing him from moving any farther.  
There was a dark shadow looming over him...Strong claws reached out and hoisted him from the ground by his throat, then tossed him as though he were a bale of hay into a jeering crowd.  
The basket was torn from his back and thrown away, probably an unknown object to the miscreants, but the rest of him was pawed over and snarled at.  
His senses came back into focus with startling reality.  
"Aaah," was his feeble cry of shock as they began to pull him down, tugging at his fur and clothes, holding him down with fang and claw to get a hold of him and have what he did.  
"No," he mumbled under the increasing mass of suffocating bodies, "no..."  
And then, when the weight was becoming too much to bear, the pack scattered with howls of pain and rage.  
Aozora looked up and saw Valon and Zuri, with Naska and Rala taking the baskets back.  
He pulled himself up against the wall, his left side aching painfully from the fall.  
A gruesome looking beast, perhaps a stoat, advanced upon him with a yowl, choking him, not letting go even though he struggled, until his fists beating at the clamp at his neck became feeble taps -  
CRACK.  
The paw loosened as the stoat reeled back, clutching his broken arm; he turned around just in time to be caught across the face by the lethal wooden blade, its edge being so sharp that it passed in a fine line through the eyes and out the back of the head.  
The entire scalp and forehead went spinning off like a top down the street, and blood splashed all over the ground and shadowed wall, all over Aozora, over his face and paws...  
His heart was beating so fast that it hurt, the adrennaline pumping so hard that he began to feel light-headed...

Killed...right in front of him...  
He had to get away...

Struggling to unfreeze his frozen leg muscles, he scrambled to his feet, and turned to look for a way out frantically.  
Where...what...  
"YAAAAAAAHHHH!" came the battlecry of a huge black fox with green patterns on his body, rapier ready for a full body slash.

And then it happened.  
Instinctively, Aozora's paw came to rest at his hip, where the cutlass handle was located.  
His claws tightened around the grip, and it became fused to his paw, was his paw, as he drew it in slowed time.  
Valon was yelling for him to duck, but mutely, dashing forward slowly to try and take Jesse before he moved in for the kill; it was happening so slowly in his mind's eye...  
The blade unsheathed and came to rest at his side as he ducked.  
The rapier scraped against the stone of the wall, thankfully missed. As Jesse looked down, also slowly, Aozora saw the bloodlust in his eyes, the need to kill...

Why...

Aozora rose, the blade rising with him in a blazing arc over his head from the side - and Jesse's arm holding the sword went flying off.  
Jesse crashed facefirst into the wall on top of Aozora, and he wriggled out from underneath the immense beast, and to his horror, his arm came up reflexively and slashed Jesse across the throat.  
Blood spurted in all directions, turning the blade crimson, turning his vision crimson.  
Everything was bathed in a brilliant red light...

"Ao...hey...Ao, wake up, matey..."  
Valon's paw was once again on his shoulder.

Aozora found himself lying down in the straw with the girls peering over at him, along with Zuri and Naska. Rala was not present.  
Valon's eyes were smiling, yet there was the flicker of concern in them.  
Aozora sat up abruptly, looking around.  
"What -"  
"Shhh, it's okay," said Valon, putting a paw to his chest and pushing him back down. "The food's been delivered, we got through okay...we slew them all."  
Aozora looked at himself. There was no fur-soaking blood, but dried flakes all over the place.  
"That's right. You slew a few yourself, but I think Jesse is going to die of bloodloss."  
The girls began to murmur to each other.  
"He took on Jesse?"  
"THE Jesse of the Black Harlequins?"  
"No way!"  
"Yes, his arm's somewhere in that alley..."  
Valon turned to them, suddenly stern. "Go back and tend to Rala, okay? Keep him some company."  
The scurried away, leaving just Naska and Zuri to stay with Valon and Aozora.  
Valon unstrapped her sword and crawled into the bedding with him, and closed her arms around him.  
Aozora, stiff from fright and weariness, laid his head against her belly.

He'd killed someone...

"At least five of 'em went down with ye, Ao," she said, "Jesse not countin'. I think he'll die though, after all the blood he'd lost."

He'd killed...he'd extinguished lives that belonged to strangers...

His eyes were blank and staring into space as she went on, and yet he heard her.

"They were not evil, Ao, but fighting for survival. We, were fighting for survival. Each of us wanted the same thing, to live. But for one to live, another must die, and thus is the balance of the world.  
"There is no right or wrong about it, save for we shouldn't be fighting each other; but this is the way of the world, to kill or be killed. We can't live in chaos, and we can't live in peace. Do you understand?"

Aozora moved his head slightly to show that he did.

He'd sent them to hellgates...another living, breathing being...

"If it makes any difference, Ao...we're proud of you."

And the heat behind his eyes would hold no longer. The tears spilled from them and rolled down her soft belly in dark, hot trails, and he clung on to her jacket tightly to stop them from coming, but flow they did, and he eventually gave himself up to the overwhelming feelings inside of him, and cried.

Naska and Zuri watched sympathetically, knowing what he felt. They were not nearly as young as he when they'd first killed someone.

But Valon's wise words had gotten through, and like every other thing that she'd ever tell him while he learned, he locked them away for eternity, so that when times were rough, he would call on her wisdom to see him through.

"...we're proud of you..."

It made all the difference.


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: In Training - Week 2-8 of the Days of Rain

The Days of Rain never ended.  
Almost every morning, almost every night, the skies would growl with thunder and drizzle.  
The street urchins could only be pent up in their homes for so long before they were out skulking as well, and Aozora got to meet the rest of the gang, another ten plus, who stayed behind with the girls sometimes and held down the fort while the new recruits were brought in.

Valon had taken Aozora and another male fox whom Zuri had adopted as his little brother, Asura.

"You know, that's weird. You two are both named after demons."  
Aozora didn't say anything. Asura only looked up at her.

They were out walking, Valon holding their paws on either side of her. The rain would have soaked them if not for the woven umbrella that Valon was raising above her head.  
It was a rather magnificent, yet simple thing, with a very large red top attached to a long, sturdy wooden pole, and strings dangling down to close it.  
If Aozora looked up, he saw what looked like small cartriges at the very top under the peak of the tent around the pole, and had the strange impression of a concealed blowdart, or something hidden inside.  
They turned the corner and came upon an old warehouse.  
"No one really owns this one," she said, folding the umbrella and slipping through a space in the slats of a boarded up door, "so we all come here to hang out now and then. It's like a mutual rule that's never been voiced, so we're quite safe in here."  
She grabbed their paws and pulled them through.

Aozora tumbled into a ball of hay, then stood up quickly, picking a few yellow strands of grass from his brush quickly and following after Valon. He noticed that Asura was already there.  
Hmm.

They climbed a set of stone stairs, under which another couple was making love rather loudly, and passing two floors until they came to the third.  
Hay was everywhere, cobwebs hanging like gruesome drapes, moss growing on the window ledges, and mold in the darkest corners.  
What had once been a lovely futon was covered in a very dusty woven cover, as were the great cushions scattered about on the floor.  
There were big basins in the back of the room made of either wood or iron that Asura gazed at interestedly.

In all, it looked like a very large, old attic.  
Few sunbeams creeped through the slats of the boards on the windows, because of the rain, but Valon lit the paper lamps, and slide the wooden sliding doors, oak, shut with a thunk.  
"This is our new training area," she announced, tossing them a broom and sak each. "It's time to clean up."

An hour later, all were sitting on the clean, mopped and polished wooden floor.  
Aozora was making a real effort to sit up straight. His back hurt and his paws stung from grasping handles and scrubbing.  
Valon let them sit on the mats, which looked as though they had not aged a day, and began the lesson.  
"Before I can train you in the art of weaponry," she started, "I have to teach you how to use what ou already have."  
She indicated the bands on her wrists and ankles.  
"These do more than support the bone at their weakest point," she went on. "If used in the correct way - and these only, mind you - they can b used as weapons or sheilds themselves."  
Walking over to an open chest on the floor, she pulled out a couple of guards and bandages and told them to hold out their paws while she went to work.  
"These aren't the same as mine, you see. They have no grips or pads for your paws, so these are wrists only."  
She applied the soft bandages first, then strapped the leather on tightly.  
"Why do we need the bandages?" asked Asura curiously.  
"Well, you don't want the leather to rub ye raw, do you?" said Valon sweetly, adjusting his left ankle's guard slightly. "It would hurt like all salts without 'em, remember that."  
Aozora watched Asura from the corner of his eye.  
He looked like a regular fox, but so grey that he looked silvery white; his eyes made him uneasy. They were orange, like a bird's eyes, flaming in the iris.  
They were wide, yet flat and shifting, weird and giving the impression that he knew something that you didn't.  
His ears and paws were black, and the fur around his neck was like a lion's mane, unruly, yet giving him a rare and beautiful look for a vulpine.  
Thos eyes turned his way, and Aozora looked away quickly, thankful that Valon had told them to stand up and begin to give him an excuse to get away.

But maybe he was just paranoid. Maybe he could be a friend. He was his own age, with no tattoos but about his same build.  
Aozora opened his ears and eyes carefully to Valon. It would not do to look like a fool in front of her and this...fox.  
Wock!  
Ao blocked a blow swung by Asura.  
"You know," drawled the fox for the first time, "I come from a family that's part wolf."  
Wock!  
Blocked again.  
As incredible as it sounded, Aozora found it hard to believe, and he said so, much to his surprise at his own bravery.  
"I don't think you are."  
Wock!  
A harder blow this time.  
Asura's eyes narrowed, and he sneered, "What would you know, fruit eye?"  
"That you don't smell like one."  
"Bah."  
Wock! Wock! Wock! Whoosh!  
Aozora ducked under the next swing over his head and drew back his elbow to send his fist in under pawed to his adversary's stomach.  
Asura stumbled backward, and Aozora, feeling surprised and yet much encouraged, carried on the attack.  
Wock!  
A guard to the side of his face quickly changed that, and he staggered sideways as Valon had told him to get on the other side.  
Asura was glaring death at him.

So, maybe not friends, after all.

"Little fox," he said, spitting the word at him, "you've probably never even seen a wolf before in your life, am I right?"  
Aozora didn't answer.  
Valno, who had been watching and listening, called advice.  
"There you go, Ao, ignore him and continue with your tactics. Keep those paws up, now..."  
Ausra didn't look very happy, and Aozora guessed that it was because he was hoping to be overheard by the pretty vixen and given praise.  
Not today, thought Aozora.  
"See? How can you tell? Stupid bastard, you are. Never even seen the real world before."  
Aozora said nothing, still trying to focus.  
Asura began to sneer even more.  
"So, was yer daddy as stupid as you? Did he try to follow a wolf's walk, or a dog's piss trail -"  
That was too far.  
Aozora moved into his "circle", the area between the upraised paws and the body, and swung his arm around to the back of Asura's head, held it in place, and leaned him forward. His knee came up, and his face smashed into it rather hard.  
Aozora let go, and Asura sat flat on his rump, rubbing his smarting nose and glaring angrily at him.

Valon was chuckling.

"Very good, Ao," she complimented, making the little fox blush and the other one burn just as badly. "Asura, you should talk less, and focus more."

Valon got up and walked over to Aozora.  
"Paws up."  
Aozora put his paws up, heart beating faster at what might be coming.  
"It's time to speed you two tortoises up."  
She came at him fast.  
"Don't think, Ao, just do."  
Aozora blocked as many hits as he could, dodged as many, but he felt so slow compared to her. She was an expert.

Getting up for the third time after being on his tail, he dusted himself off and stood again.  
Pretty or not, he wouldn't show his weaknesses to her, or that sneering snowball.  
Valon's eyebrows rose.  
"Not giving up yet, huh?"  
Aozora didn't say anything, but stood stiffly with his paws raised.  
"Ah," she said knowingly. "There's your problem."  
She straightened her back and started to bounce around on her toes.  
This seemed so strange to Aozora that he let his paws down for a second in confusion.  
"C'mon," she said, smiling at him. "Loosen up, and bounce like this...there you go...see..."  
Aozora felt a little silly doing so, but he matched every movement that she made as best he could.  
"Don't be so stiff. Move with the environment, the way you feel. It's a work of art."  
They began to circle.  
"Stay on your toes, now."  
Whoosh, swish, whock!  
Valon let go three lightning fast blows from the chest to his head.  
Aozora jumped backward a little to avoid the first, tilted to the left for the second, and blocked the last with his guarded arm.  
"Not bad."  
Encouraged once more, he tried it.  
Valon upt her arms together, and all three blows bounced off harmlessly.  
"Don't stretch out your arms all the way, now," she said. "Try again."

Once again, but her having to duck quickly under the last one, none of them hit.  
"Okay, stop. His turn."  
Aozora put his paws down.  
"Go practice with that bean thing hanging from the ceiling."  
He looked at where she indicated. There was a great big, black bag hanging from several ropes from the eaves that really did look like a giant bean.  
He walked over to it, having a last glance at the glaring white fox as he began sparring with Valon too.

The bag loomed in front of him like Jesse had, casting a long shadow over him.  
No.  
He shook away his fears, and yet, there was Jesse's image anyway.  
He rose to his toes.  
His arms went up...and he began to spar.

Was this power, hate, what was fueling him now? The bag's face kept changing from Jesse's to the vermin with half a head, and finally to Asura.  
Aozora smirked grimly in his mind. There was one that he didn't mind wanting to punch.

Move with the surroundings.

He loosened up, and his body began to move on its own, swaying ,weaving, yet with great balance.  
He almost looked drunk, but he was feeling the surroundings, could move amongst the environment...he understood what she said. Silly it may have looked, but it was dangerously effective.

For the next four weeks, every day was spent inside of this "dojo" for practice on how to fight.  
Every other day, they had to keep the place tidy.  
Asura and Aozora worked side by side until their paws were worn raw from getting down and scrubbing and sanding the wooden floor, and the longer that both stayed in the same place as reluctant parnters, sharing the same spot on the floor sometimes, the more and more animosity grew between them to the point that Aozora felt that this rich boy wouldn't get along with anyone, and that he couldn't trust him with Valon.

When it came time to practice with the wands, the wood swords, Aozora was sure that if given a real one, Asura would have beheaded him and staked his corpse to the wall.  
He was a furious fighter, and both were evenly matched. Those wands could double as clubs, so both would be in bruises at the end of the session.  
Asura was just wild when he was angry. Aozora could feel anger, maybe not as badly, but eventually came to the conclusion that Asura was ruled by hate and greed, and trying to make himself shine in Valon's eyes only by etting rid of him.

Aozora appreciated Valon's praise, and by no means would he let himself become a showoff.

Cwock!  
The hilts were forced together as he and the white adversary crossed swords.  
Aozora didn't like his eyes at all.  
Face to face, nearly nose to nose, they snarled at each other.  
"Valon's mine, I hope you know," said Asura in a low voice.  
Scandalized, but hiding his expression, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he'd been struck verbally as well as personally, he pushed back.  
"Depending on her now to fight your battles? You can't depend on anyone but yourself," he said.  
Asura's eyes roved over him, making is hair stand up.

"Break it up, guys," called Valon, and they separated. "Come eat some lunch."  
Aozora sat down on his mat with his legs crossed and back straight, like Valon's, and contemplated as he ate, holding the bowl in one hand and taking tiny bites.  
No need to get a cramped stomach.  
He had changed, mentally. No longer as he as timid as he was. Facing Asura had been good for him in learning to wield the powers of survival.  
But...did he want this? What would it be like when he finally had a real sword, and had to go after someone? If he killed them?  
When fighting Asura, he enjoyed himself, though he was his enemy. Asura did as well but his grinning. He wasn't afraid to show him up, but he might be a coward otherwise.  
Was he a coward too? If, in the first charge, would he forget everything and run back to Valon to cry?  
No. Not only would Asura win, that would leave him in a state of mutual disgrace that he couldn't even begin to imagine.  
Valon tilted her head curiously.  
"What do you think about when you're eating, Ao?" she said. The question caught him off guard, so out of the blue, it was.  
"How good it tastes," he said, smiling back at her.  
It was not completely a lie; the stew really did taste marvelous. That was another thing that he'd been doing often.  
Keeping to himself, besides when Valon was around, became almost instinctive, and quickly became a habit. He was stoic and silent a lot of the time, because he had so much to think about. The past, which he had gratefully left behind, now, what was going on around him and beyond him, and the future, what would happen.  
Valon only stared at him for a little while longer, eyes seeking his, a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips, then turned away to talk to Asura.  
"And what do you think about while you're eating?"  
"Power," came his immediate answer.  
"And what is power to you?"  
"Your cooking skills."  
Aozora nearly retched at how cheezy that sounded. He threw a quick glance at the two of them, in which Valon was laughing softly, and Asura was smirking.  
Demming-freaky smirk. Aozora growled deep within his soul, but continued eating, showing no sign that he'd heard.  
But Asura knew he did, and Aozora knew that he knew, and so the two went on, stealing looks at the other.  
Asura did not dislike him, as Aozora had first thought. He hated him to the core.  
Aozora did not return the same feelings, but in a way, almost pitied him.

He finished the rest of his stew.

Week seven: The real thing.

Here we go, thought Aozora, sitting in meditating pose. He cracked an eyelid to look at Asura next to him.  
Asura was straight up and dutiful, but his eyebrow was twitching slightly at being so close to him.  
Aozora shut him out and relaxed.  
No thoughts, save for what it would be like to go to the place in his head that might have existed at one point in time...  
It had been there since as long as he could remember, a valley so beautiful, with small fields in the pit and a mighty river running through, between large forests and white cliffs, flowers and waterfalls everywhere...  
A sky as blue as the bluest waters, with great white clouds passing by, casting huge shadows over the ground as they passed under the sun...

It was a garden of plenty, or peace...to sink into, fall into, be swallowed up and drown into the sunlight and tranquility, a place where violence hardly existed, and had not for several centuries...  
The trees laughed and the streams chattered happily, all was quiet and calm, all was right...the forest had known it for a long, long time...

Aozora Lay down on his back and arched upwards in his warm up stretches as Asura and Valon did, going as far as he could, then bending his legs over his head one by one...and then his arms, one by one...  
He rolled his shoulders slowly, and his neck, then drew himself back up to his sitting position and breathed deeply.

He floated back up to the surface of reality again and opened his eyes.

"Now," said Valon.

The two listened attentively.

"We are going on a bit of a raid against our neighboring gang. Jesse's still alive, aparently, but he's getting revenge on us. There's to be a showdown in the square, and it is a good chance that we will be caught."  
Aozora and Asura listened closely. Aozora could feel something close to panic in his gut.  
"This own't happen until he has time to recover, which should be in nother season or so, but I'm telling you this because if we so much as try to get out of our territory to the coast, they will come in and kill us on sight. It's easier to search a corpse for what you want than a struggling, living beast.  
"If it comes down to that, you can't leave a single one alive. It has become an unnoficial war between us, and the less that show up, the better, you understand?"  
The boys nodded.  
"Great. Now then: go to the racks over there and pick up a weapon that you feel more accustomed to. You two are going to act as my bodyguards as I walk from here to the south-eastern end, to where some of another gang that doesn't like us resides. Can you do this? I must not have a single drop of blood lost."

Shhhhzzzz, thought Aozora, but he nodded. Asura did as well.

This was going to be hard, he thought. Asura could come up at any time and stab me with nothing to lose.

They walked over to the rack and selected their weapon.

Asura chose a katana. He found it incredibly useful when battling Asura.  
Asura chose a straightsword.

Valon discarded her wooden sword and instead chose a tanto, then began to undress.  
Aozora averted his eyes, though it was hard to do - he would not sink as low as to watch. Asura kept staring, but he too made an effort.  
Valon changed into a selection of rich silks and cotton until she looked like a lady, and placed the tanto in her sleeve's pockets.  
Slipping on her sandles, she tossed her head, then grabbed the umbrella.  
"Come on, then," she said imperiously, but gave them a wink.  
Aozora and Asura looked at each other, as though hardly daring to believe it, then shrugged, and followed their charge out the door.


	6. Chapter 5

Thank you, Chibi-tama-love, for the Review!

Chapter 5: The Trials

Three figures walked down the many twisting backstreets at a steady, yet swift, pace.  
The rain was drizzly and misty, much to the bodyguard's dismay; Valon would appear and reappear as those great white clouds drifted by.  
Aozora stayed firmly on her right side, Asura firmly on her left, both holding umbrellas over their shoulder and glaring at the other sternly.  
Aozora tried to be calm, but it was hard to do. Asura was apparently feeling the same way, because he began to strike up a rather insulting conversation.

While the two bickered, Aozora would constantly have to pull himself back onto the the charge every time they turned a corner, and soon was fed up with Asura and began to ignore him.  
Another corner.

FWISH!

Automatically, Aozora held the top of the umbrella forward like a shield, and to his surprise, that's exactly what it was.  
The large rock bounced off harmlessly, not even making a proper scratch.  
But -  
Quick as a flash, Asura had separated the pole from his umbrella, broken into a cartridge, and shot a dart at the offender.

The offender swayed and dropped like a stone. Asura smiled cruelly at Aozora, as though to say, "Beat you to him."  
Aozora stared straight ahead, silently seething at his partner's attitude. Asura could get under his fur like no one else.

There were still many rock throwers, and Aozora decided that he'd shield, and Asura could waste his darts.  
Asura aimed, Aozora blocked, and so far so good, the Lady Valon was unharmed.

Another corner, turned. Aozora had the feeling that they were making laps around the same block, or twisting around so much that they were deep into the backstreets so far that it was almost endless.

Another corner.  
Aozora's hair stood up, and he scanned in his peropheral vision like he was taught, his eyes never stopping...he could see Asura, just as jumpy, and doing the same thing.  
Then -  
"RAAAGH!"  
A large emaciated ferret jumped out in front of them.  
Instead of jumping to the fray, Valon shocked both of her guards: she knelt down on one knee with her umbrella over her shoulder, in such a delicate manner...  
Aozora's eyes were nearly popping out of his head, but he took control again immediately as the gang began to close in with snarls and battle cries.

Asura was going at them with his sword already.  
Aozora folded his umbrella and used it like a stave, nevermind the sword. There was no need to kill them when there was an alternative, right?

...Right?

Whock! Smash! Crack! Whap!

The pole twirled dangerously, then opened with a loud Whoomph!  
Aozora leaned backwards at the impact as two miscreants went flying off the open end.  
And then he realized.  
"Asura!" he yelled. "Stop fighting!"  
"What!" Asura yelled back, taking out another one with a lethal strike across the throat.  
Aozora growled in exasperation and pulled the "Lady Valon" to her feet.  
With a savage growl, he feigned a charge at them; they jumped back cautiously.  
"C'mon, milady," he said, and she took his paw. But instead of running for it, she walked at the same pace that she'd already been at.  
What in the seven blazing pits of hellgates -  
Wham!  
Aozora was caught across the face by a pole.  
Automatically, he swung his and knocked the attacker out cold.  
Angrily, he forgot about Valon and grabbed Asura.  
"You're supposed to be helping! Cut it out!"  
"Get off," Asura snarled, aiming at Aozora.  
They struggled for a moment, then noticed that Valon was nowhere in sight.  
"Kuso," they said in unison (another word for the S or D word), looking around.

"Listen, fool," Aozora said, "we've got to cut this out. She didn't say "go kill everyone". She said to "protect" her."  
Asura said nothing, but started running.  
Aozora followed, scanning around the mists for any sign of where Valon might be. Normally, he wouldn't be worried, but now, since she was refusing to fight, this could get really difficult...  
"Where are you," he muttered to himself, closed umbrella under his arm and paw on the hilt of the katana.  
He was hoping that he wouldn't be able to use it, for it still bothered him to kill. If there was a way, an alternate way out, he would take it.  
What if it were him at the end of that blade? Would the person above him think the way he did, be conflicted, and maybe let him live without further punishment?  
Unlikely...  
"Valon!"  
There she was at a dead end, kneeling down again with the umbrella over her shoulder.  
Aozora and Asura were running flat out, side by side.  
Asura suddenly shoved Aozora. "She's mine, fruit eye," he growled. Aozora lost his footing for a moment, then rammed Asura back.  
"She's not! We've got to save her!"  
"Like I need your help!"  
"Yes, you do!"  
"No I don't!"  
"Fine," said Aozora and dived into the oncoming crowd, belaying about him with the pole in all directions.  
ZWUM! sang the blade of Asura as it cut just a hairsbreadth from Aozora's ear.  
"Be careful -"  
"Shuttup!"  
Asura went at them all like a hurricane, jumping about and making the steel sing the song of death.  
Aozora shook his head from the haze trying to form in his eyes, trying to freeze him up again, and knelt next to the Lady Valon. Draping one paw over his neck, he supported her through the pressing crowd, swinging the pole for all its worth.  
As soon as they got to the open street, the vermin down that alley were trapped, for they could not get past Asura.  
"Fool," Aozora muttered. Hitching up the Lady Valon and searching for any scratches (there were none), he went on as fast as he could.  
When she started to drag her feet, he more or less dragged her faster or half carried her. His blood was hot, and he was on the verge of panic because of the murderous crowd behind them, and that his mentor wasn't able to stop playing around and start moving...  
And then they turned a corner and came to the last stretch of road that would take them back.  
It was long, but it should work.  
Aozora focused on nothing but getting her there, blocking a few flying stones with the umbrella.  
He shut Asura out of his mind, as hard as it was to do so. The fool loved his job a bit too much, all for impressing Valon.  
There was work to be done, after all, and to be devoted to. Aozora couldn't go back for him, even though he wanted to desperately - it wouldn't be the same without him.

Aozora walked faster, leaning the umbrella over his shoulder to defend against people behind him.  
Almost there...  
And suddenly Asura was jogging by his side, cut up and bloodied, his sword dripping red as the drizzle rinsed it off the steel.  
Aozora gulped at the sight and kept his eyes straightforward. Asura tried to catch his eye, perhaps to argue with him for leaving him behind, but when it became known that Aozora was making a real point to ignore him, he turned so that he was back to back with him, knocking the umbrella back in front. Aozora didn't have to look behind him to see that he was defending the back without question.  
Smiling to himself, he picked up the pace, and trusted for Asura to follow; he needn't have worried.  
Valon smiled under her umbrella.

The final stretch. Almost there. The vermin were increasing the farther they went. Aozora could see them in the broken windows and in the dark corners of the streets, skulking and watching them with burning eyes and open, drooling mouths.  
Aozora studied one that looked like some ugly demon, an emaciated marten that looked like a living skeleton, ribs showing through, fur falling out in several places, wounds all over his shoulders and back and across his face. His mouth was open, his bright eyes wide and staring. His chest moved noticeably up and down with every panting breath as the thing moved to all fours, hair standing up along its back, tail whipping feebly.  
What was it about this creature that Aozora felt such pity for? Perhaps the fact that he'd look like that some day? That the beast would not survive the rest of the season?  
Some cruel act of evil had been stressed upon this poor creature until he looked like nothing more than, was nothing more than, a corpse with just a flicker of flame left, not ready to die, wanting to do anything - anything - to keep living longer, even eat his fellows or other living beasts. The burning obsession to live.

That was what made his eyes burn.  
Did he have a reason to survive? What was his reason?  
Aozora looked away.

After a few moments of growing silence, and Asura batting away offending rocks, Valon said, "You are far from ready, and yet, we have no choice. No one passes the first time."  
Aozora and Asura started at her voice.  
"Does this mean we'll have to keep practicing?"  
"Yes. Practice hard and long until next season."  
Aozora didn't feel sad, but more releived. It meant that he wouldn't have to kill anyone anytime soon.

The days passed, as did the rain.  
Aozora lost track of how old he was immediately. It didn't matter when you were starving to death.  
The Days of Rain soon became fall, and from fall, they stayed at the blacksmith's more and more often, until finally, the first snow fell.  
They all huddled together in their little alcove under the abandoned inn, which sat on the bank of the river.  
Their homes were solidified pits and shells made of the river mud, and they sometimes flooded;  
But most of the time, they curled in the smallest spaces on the hay and whatever else they could find, snuggled up together for warmth and survival.  
Aozora didn't mind curling up in a ball into Valon's stomach, but he thought that he didn't when Zuri would do the same for her.  
As it turned out, as much as he hated to admit it, he was jealous.

And as the seasons passed, he became increasingly jealous, as did Asura, but they said nothing, did nothing about it.

Aozora's first winter was terrible and cold. The others only provided so much heat, and when they did, everyone was sure to put the youngsters in the middle of the group, because when they slipped into false hibernation stage, they heated up like stoves, or would freeze to death if they didn't go to sleep when told.  
Aozora remembered waking up to find Mina dead next to him.  
It scared him, to see her eyes blank and staring, like his parents when they had died, seeming to see things beyond him...her arms were clasped around her body quite hard for warmth, and had stiffened there in place.  
Valon had placed a gentle hand over her eyes and shut them, and everyone had placed their paw on her forehead in farewell, then heaved her out to the river.

Aozora watched as she floated away, then sank, and saw her no more.  
Luckily, she had left behind some things, like her curtain/cloak, and seeds for growing vegetables.  
In the fertile river soil, even in winter, at least a little of the plants survived to be eaten.  
The gang lost at least two others in the river before spring arrived, in which the gentle showers, cold, yet refreshing, rolled upon them until the grass thawed and the trees became green again.  
Four times, maybe more, had gone by with this. Maybe a lot more. The clashing had been set back again and again until finally, it was about to happen.

Aozora and Asura were both the same size, and slightly taller than Valon. Zuri towered over everyone except Naska.

As Aozora opened his eyes on his next morning, he saw that all was clear, all was calm, and all was good.  
It was a refreshing morning, of when a single ray of sun peaked through the mass of gray clouds, breaking them apart little by little until they were scarce and white and fluffy in the big blue sky once more.

Blue Sky, he thought, and voiced his name aloud.  
"Aozora."

He lay upon his back in the hay, the others already up or sleeping in. He stared up at the sky so blue, and closed his eyes when the sunlight fell upon his cold, stiff, aching body with such warmth that he could just drown in and never return...  
...And then it was gone, leaving a gentle kiss upon his cheek to remind him that all would be well now, for it was finally summer again.

All would be far from well, as a matter of fact. The streets began to chatter amongst themselves, urchins and folk alike, about the upcoming war.  
The Black Harlequins vs. the Northpoints, a showdown of a large gang and a medium one.  
Gossip flew everywhere, about the Harlequins wiping the streets with the Northpoints, and people began to make bets, no matter how illegal the outcomes would turn out to be.


	7. Chapter 6 Part 1

Chapter 6 Pt. 1: The Great Showdown: The Black Harlequins vs. The Northpoints

The showdown is here, and prison is not fun.  
**Note: No one on the street knows or cares how old they are, but we're guessing Kaneda's around fourteen by now, as is Asura and Arokk.**

_Clouds, drifting by  
Sailing 'cross the big blue sky;  
Wish I knew my name, for I could fly  
But do you have a reason to live, or die?_

_What desire is to my,  
Under the blue sky I lie,  
Wishing for it not to end on nigh -  
What is your reason to live or die?_

_-Aozora Reminices, Blue Sky_

_Eyes are the windows to the soul  
Keep me captive, shutters on my windows  
Open your eyes, to me...  
Secrets deep within thee..._

_Open your soul to me,  
Are you chained or are you free,  
Open your eyes to me,  
Are you the reflection of me..._

_Peering out the windows, what do I see  
But the fears of my world, opening to me.  
They are immortal, as are the trees,  
For you, the secret, are on you knees._

_Open to me, shutters free,  
Secret to gift, given to the world, to me,  
Let go the chains of hatred and anger, please,  
Be immortal...mine...for eternity..._

_-Asura Musings, Behind the Windows_

-----------------------------

Jesse held down his blade with one foot and began to polish it with his left paw.  
The emerald tattoos upon his body were faded, and his fur was becoming slightly lighter than coal black.  
A steel brace had been placed over his shoulder where his right arm had been, but Jesse could handle that - he was ambidexturous.  
Yattaro, his younger brother, sat at his feet, sprawled out on the floor with his broadsword over one shoulder.  
"You're lucky that they're a small bunch, Jess."  
"I know."  
"They're almost not worth going after. You'll die, with only one arm."  
"I know."  
Yattaro frowned, casting a glance his way.  
"It's for that girl, isn't it?"  
"I must honor the codes of our right to survival as much as theres. Whether I die or not, there is a balance to our world that must be kept. You know that."  
There was a pause as his eyes filmed over.  
"But it is about her, yes."  
"When we win, she'll be mine."  
"You are a little too young, little brother."  
"Pah," Yattaro scoffed, visions of Northpoint Gang's Valon wriggling in his claws. Once he got his paws on her...  
Jesse nearly rolled his eyes at his brother's immaturity, for Yattaro had begun making guestures in the air of what he'd do.  
"If someone sees you doing that..."  
"Eh?" said Yattaro, snapping out of it. He was thankful for the black fur that hid his blush. "I don't know what you're spoutin' about, crip." He rose to his feet and began to whet his blade on the wall vigorously.  
"Thoughts like that will lead to your downfall someday," mused Jesse.  
"I think you're talkin' out yer arse," was Yattaro's response.  
Jesse finished the blade, tossed the rag, and sheathed the sword. Tying a red and yellow drape around his waist in the traditional fighting style, he knotted it at the front and let it hang down over his breeches. Attaching the leather guards to his legs and arm, he flexed and limbered up in anticipation of the upcoming battle.  
"Get ready."  
"Been waitin'."  
"Good."  
Those Northpoints, always wearing their battle colors wherever they went, thought Jesse to himself. They should have more respect, being the lowest on the chain...but then, they never wanted to rise to power anyway. Why is it that they'd choose death over luxury?  
But then, maybe they had a greater reason. Everyone had a reason, no matter how dumb, to kill, to survive. They wore their colors proudly wherever they went, because they knew they were better, knew they were smarter than the others...but didn't flaunt it. They didn't brag. They kept to themselves.  
Jesse sighed.  
This could be his last day in this world, and yet, he still looked forward to a good time. The world as it was, that he knew, was full of suffering from the day he was born. It would be good to leave it for the better of the world - it's not like it mattered.  
What was one more life?

Aozora could hear Zuri, Naska, Rala, and Valon talking in the corner, away from everyone else.  
"Zuri and Naska, you are my Second and Third fighters. If things go wrong...if I die...then one of you is to become the new leader of the Northpoints."  
"We won't be one if we lose."  
"We won't, Val," Rala said gently. "We may have some losses, or things might go wrong, but we won't lose."  
There was an exchange of glances, then Rala called everyone to him.  
"The time has come at last to face the Black Harlequins," he announced. "I want everyone present to be armed to the teeth in case anything goes wrong, a''ight? I trust Jesse not to do anything stupid, as honorable as he is, but his brother, Yattaro, could pull something on us.  
"Don't get caught in the prisons. I'm sure that by now, they alreadu know that we're coming."  
Aozora felt his heart speed up and a lump rise in his throat, but he tried to stop the trembling and look brave.  
Everyone put their arms around the other in a big cirle, then closed in on the four to touch their fur and put their foreheads together in a respectful silence.

And then, it was time to move out.  
"Everyone partner up," commanded Rala. "Vavi, Ring, take the standard and paint. Derrek, Garret, take the extra upply of weaponry, just in case. Make sure that the umbrellas are loaded and ready to go, 'kay?"  
They nodded.  
Aozora and Asura paired up with their weapons.  
Aozora's paw gripped the hilt of the katana hard. His blood was pounding like a drum in his ears, but softly. The sunlight caught the bead of sweat running down Naska's forehead, and Aozora didn't miss it.

Either way, he could not escape his fate. Someone was going to die today, whether from somewhere else or by his own paw.

The beasts from both sides entered the square with marching, military air and style, head held high, shoulders thrown back and chests out.  
Everyone, geared up and ready, with their leaders in the front.  
They knocked aside barricades and blockers, and the city'sfolk scattered like ants, screaming and yelling, pushing and shoving to be on the safer sidelines.

As they walked, they tagged the walls with their logos, daring the other to set foot, to stop them from marking their agreed territory.  
Aozora and Asura marched silently side by side behind Valon and Naska, who in turn were behind Rala and Zuri. The banner holders held their dyed and painted curtain like a flag, a blue one with a compass rose in the shape of a kama-yari in the middle.  
The Black Harlequins had their black flag upraised, with a demonic looking jester juggling three, bloody globes.

They stopped.  
The leaders came to the center of the square with their tag teams and faced each other.  
Aozora felt Valon brush by his arm as she stepped forward to call the rules.

"We will participate by the Standard Dueling Rule," she said. (see footnote)  
Both sides murmured their consent.  
Jesse inclined his head and adjusted the steel ball in the whoulder brace casually. Rala also inclined his head, but narrowed his eyes in suspicion.  
Today, he wore the traditional red and yellow around his hips, and black, baggier breeches that Aozora suspected were made out of the sacks for this very occasion.  
A chain held them up loosely, thick with silver links, but Aozora was sure that there was something about it that did more than serve as a belt.

Valon walked back to her place, and the gangs backed up.  
A cloud's shadows was passing over the cobblestones of the square, and for a moment, all was unnerving silence. Aozora could hear the blood pounding loudly in his ears now, his heart beating a steady tattoo.  
The shadow slowly passed by...slowly...ever so slowly...  
Asura gulped, but his eyes were narrowed. They both had to open their mouths slightly - canids don't sweat.  
The countdown...  
Three.  
The shadow was right over them.  
Two.  
It was going to clear.  
One.  
It was past.

And the battle began.

Aozora momentarily forgot what was happening as his paws shot to his ears, because at that moment, the screaming started.  
Both gangs totaling up to nearly eighty people had began shouting and screaming. The noise was deafening - windows and panes shook and rattles, the folk on the sidelines, startled, joined in as well, and even scarier, the sound o singing steel could be heard.  
Rala crossed swords with Jesse, and both broke away to start circling each other.  
Round and round they went, each showing off their expertise of footwork and swordsmanship as they break out of the circle and attack with a lightening fast blow and back off again.  
Aozora shrank back to Vavi's side, where the banners were located, to where it was safer; the gang beasts began throwing gang signs and cheering, hopping up and down and stomping until the ground began to shake.  
"Show 'im who's boss, Jesse!"  
"Kick his arse, Rala!"  
"Show the little faku atama (F-head) a good time, Jess!"

More insults and jeers rang through the air as Rala and Jesse battled it out fiercely.  
Jesse knelt sideways on his left, as though stopping to pick up some fallenchange. Rala, who had swung but missed when he crouched down, was carried by the momentum forward. At that moment, The brace on Jesse's right exploded, and the ball shot out on a length of chain directly for Rala's face.  
Aozora gasped involuntarily at the sudden movement. Zuri shouted, "Dodge it, Rala!"  
Rala dropped as fast as he could to the ground, swept his legs around and lashed Jesse flat on his back.  
Rising fast, he leapt into the air with a mighty yell, ready to drop the shining steel bolt from above - but Jesse rolled onto his back and kicked him in the stomach.  
Rala stumbled backwards, breathing lightly as Jesse jumped back up to his feet. After a moment's contemplation, they began to circle again.

Yattaro hung just outside the "ring" with the the other tag team member.  
He shot a quick look behind him at a rooftop, and saw a glint of metal in the sunlight.  
He nodded.  
Turning back to the fight, he saw something that made his eyes widen a little in surprise.  
There was a young dark fox staring at him. For a second, Yattaro thought that he'd noticed the exchange, but shook it out of his head, staring until the other dropped his gaze.  
But he didn't.  
Aozora had caught the flash in his peripheral vision, and he kept his eyes locked on Yattaro as he made his way to Valon.  
"Look at the roof," he shouted to her. He had to shout - the noise was increasing heavily.  
Valon glanced at where he indicated, her eyes narrowing. Her paw tightened on her bokken's hilt, and then released.  
She gave a sad look to Aozora and nodded that she understood.

Clang! Clash! Chang! Zwiish!  
The blades continued to battle, and the noise echoed off of the square, along with the occasional whoosh of the chains.  
Rala had unraveled his as well, and was fighting with two weapons at once. The dirk at his hip could wait.  
Whoom. The metal ball whistled by his ear. Lashing out with the chain, he struck as hard as he could and was rewarded at the metallic snap from the brace.  
It had only dented, but it was enough.  
At the precise second that he was drawing the chain back from the attack, the other chain wrapped around it and dragged him forward.  
He letit go, and the other end clattered noisily on the cobblestones. He took the sword double pawed and aimed fro the brace again, trusting that with two chains, twice as long, it was too heavy to move into attack position.  
Slazhh!  
"AAARGH!" cried Jesse as the blade separated the brace from his shoulder forcefully.  
Rala used the backslash to whip him across the face.  
Jesse stumbled back for a moment, then came at it again, blade twirling.  
Shling! Swash! Tchak! Whang!  
The swords became blurs of colorful lights in the sunlight as the two circled and hacked away at each other, slashing and swinging and going at it for all its worth.  
They hopped, skipped, and danced their way across the square, decimating the well and scoring gouges in the pavement.  
Both were breathing hard, and yet, they hadn't called on their team yet.  
Aozora could only wonder why, and why Valon looked so sad. Why had she not done anything? This whole thing was rigged!  
Finally, in the last rush, a glint of light bounced off Rala's eyewhite.  
He knew they were there.  
He knew they'd show up.  
"Jesse, I'm sorry about yer arm, honest."  
"It were that demned fox's fault, and he's one of yours," panted Jesse in the beginning. "Ye'd better hope that Yattaro or I don't get our hands on 'em."

And now, Rala knew his fate.  
He ducked under the blade and grabbed his left arm. They swung around in a complete twirl until they were back to back.

And he knew there was no future.  
He made sure that he was pressed as tightly into him as possible, and strangely, felt that Jesse wasn't resisting. He too had come to the same conclusion.  
All had gone mute, and yet distantly, he could still hear them cheering and jeering and yelling and swearing.  
He gripped the sword, raising it high above his head with the point down.  
Everything seemed to be in slow motion in the final moments, the world bathed in sunlight so powerful that it seemed to block out everything else. The world was glowing yellow and the richest gold...  
The blade dropped.

Aozora's eyes widened with shock.  
Even the crowds went silent for a moment, surprised.  
Several of the members on the Northpoint side rushed forward, but the others held them back.  
Aozora looked up at Valon. Her deep teal eyes were filled with forced-back tears.

Both opponents sank to their knees at the same time.  
Both of their mouths were open in a kind of lopsided grin, blood trainling down their chins...  
And both of their paws, one each fell to the ground beside the other, and they died that way, heads bowed to the gates of death respectfully.

"Hara kiri," everyone murmured to themselves softly.  
Aozora stood rooted to the spot as Valon turned her head away, eyes closed. A trail of tears ran down her cheeks, and it tugged at his heart to see it. She was such a strong person, and he never thought that he'd ever see her with a weakness.  
But it's not a weakness, he thought, catching sight of Asura.  
He brushed her shoulder lightly, then moved away. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Asura had come to hold her paw.  
"Prick," Aozora muttered as he walked away. He felt a sense of deep loss. Not only of Rala, for he had been a great leader, and he would miss him, but also for Valon. She'd never be his.

But an even greater loss was about to occur.

The gangs got over their shock quickly, and rioted.  
A peppering of darts showered into the Northpoint crowd, and Naska and Zuri dropped.  
"Zuri! Naska!" yelled Valon over the din.  
Yattaro stood amongst his gang, shouting back to her, "Valon! Surrender!"  
"You cheat!" she yelled back, tears streaming down her face.  
Yattaro shrugged.  
"The deal was that if Rala died, we got your territory, and if Jesse died, you get a bit of ours and some more members. But now there was an unexpected little twist, as you can see: both have died at the same time by your leader's paw.  
"So now, here's a new rule - we finish what we started! Attack!"  
"Sentou!" Valon shrieked, hurling herself at the attackers.  
Aozora turned around in surprise as a blade sliced down from above. He pulled his sword halfway clear to block it, then cleared completely to disarm the offender.  
No! He still would not kill!  
But to see Valon sad, to see that that bastard had uncovered her weakness, burned in him with a flaming fury. He wouldn't let Valon go that easily.  
Someone shoved past him.  
It was Asura, charging into the fray and yelling like a madbeast.

Something else burned within him, and he moved faster than he believed possible, shoving him back.  
"NO YOU DON'T!" he bellowed, but Asura shoved him again, screaming, "KUTABARE!"  
They struggled for a moment as they ran, and then eventually didn't care as they headed into the oncoming crowd of mad Black Harlequins.  
The whole thing had been rigged from the start.  
That Yattaro.

The two sides clashed so hard that the people on the sidelines flinched.

The red haze was beginning to cover his vision again, and, panicking, he tried desperately to clear it, dropping back for a moment, to shake his head and paw at his eyes.  
It flickered...  
And gave him just enough time to ffreeze up as the reaching blades tried to make contact with his face.  
He forgot the whole thing immediately as everything went red again, forcing him to it this time, not giving him a choice in the matter, and he let himself go.  
Just go to a place in the back of his mind where he would not have to watch himself become what he'd feared from the first time he'd killed someone.

The paw fused to the katana hilt lashed out, blade and all, and he joined Asura in the fray, matching him blow for blow, flying attack for flying attack.  
A deep, animal growl of rage and frustration was rising in his throat, pumping the addrennaline harder and faster through his veins, making him faster and better.  
The air felt very still as he moved faster than even he could follow, in which his senses opened up.  
Everything just seemed to open up, and it didn't matter who he started into. He and Asura took separate spaces and started clearing the square.

Guards with spears and darts rushed, clacking their sticks and clubs together and throwing pepper and foreign salts to hopefully break everyone up.  
Aozora and Asura paid them no heed. Their eyes were wide and pink, their veins thowing under their thin layer of skin and fur, their mouths open with bared, gleaming fangs and lolling tongues as they attacked tooth and claw into the oncoming horde.  
Aozora turned his crazed gaze to Yattaro, who was making his way over to Valon.  
A roaring blur of white streaked past him, knocking him aside. Aozora recovered his stiff balance quickly and shot after him, heading for Yattaro too.

Valon and Yattaro began to slug it out, blade to blade.  
"Tell me, Val," he said, sneering lustily, "what good is a wooden sword against a steel blade?"  
"Good enough for you," she growled back, her eyes red from the tears.  
Yattaro rushed in and grabbed her, holding her arms in place. He leaned his head down to whisper in her ear, "No sense in struggling, my queen. You're coming back with me, if I have to drag you by your hair!"  
"Heh," said Valon, smiling weakly, eyes blazing and bright.  
It stopped Aozora for a moment. Was she giving herself up?  
He gave a loud snarl and, sword gripped so hard in his left paw and forgotten, he charged on threes and fours with as much speed as he could, almost there to where he could jump like a wolf and grab a hold of his throat and sink his fangs in so deep that blood would spurt out of him like a gyser, drain his life's blood all over the ground, end his life...  
...Like a wolf...

But he missed.  
His claws, unsheathed with an ominous shiik, smacked him hard across the face as he went sailing overhead.  
Yattaro staggered at the exact moment that Asura came through with his sword.  
Valon, who's sword was hacked to splinters, disarmed him and tossed the bokken, using the steel one instead.  
Aozora was turning back around when he froze again.

He was still running, and yet time had slowed. He couldn't run nearly fast enough.  
She locked eyes with him, with a weak smile, and mouthed, "The way it is, Ao."

Yattaro jumped back immediately as the sword point came out of her back, for his stomach.  
"Kuso baka yarou," spat Yattaro, backing away with wide eyes, and finally turning to run as the guards filed in.  
"VALON!"  
Aozora made it and fell to his knees beside her. She lay on her side, blade through her middle.  
The haze turned a delicate shade of pink.  
"Valon," he whispered.  
Nothing mattered now.  
The sounds, the screams of pain and cruel happiness were muted, blocked out in his mind.  
It was only them now.  
Valon looked up at him, smiling gently.  
"It was rigged from the start, Ao. There was no way..."  
"But you can still live..."  
"Yes, I can. But it's what fate chooses, I'm afraid. I haven't hit any vital organs, so fate will decide whether I come or go."  
"The pack needs you," he said, choking back the rising lump in his throat, his eye burning with tears.  
"And you," she said.  
"But I don't know how -"  
"You don't have to know anything more than how to survive. The smarter and wiser you are, the longer you stay alive. Oh Ao, you'll see me again," she said, stroking his cheek with a feeble paw. Aozora burried his face into it, brushing her claws gently.  
Valon closed her eyes and did not get up again. Her paw fell, and Aozora placed his paw over her eyes in the traditional way, though they were already closed, and he stood.

The hilt that had become so loose in his paws while talking to her tightened.  
It didn't matter now.  
Nothing did.  
He looked over to Asura boldly, who in turn, picked up two of the fallen kamayaris and passed one to him.  
Aozora buckled it silently over his shoulder. He couldn't speak. His mouth was sealed shut as his mind began to reshape and open.  
He was thrust back into the far corners in a place where anguish could not touch him, and the haze came back over his eyes until it was fully scarlet, and for a moment, he could not see a thing; and then, the haze cleared, sharpened, became bright, and his senses more than just opened up, they defied all walls and boundaries. Everything was clearer now, and surreal.  
He and Asura charged again with a new energy.

Slipping and sliding upon pools of blood and other spilled liquids, they frantically made their way into the crowd - And cut everyone in their way down.


	8. Chapter 6 Part 2

Chapter 6 Part 2

He woke up again in a dimly lit room, with the only sunlight coming through a grille in the tiny space.  
The floor was flagged stone and dried grass, hay. Grime and mold were stuck into the crevices of the stone blocks, and the whole place smelled damp and wet.  
His body hurt rather badly, stiff and sore and aching, and for a moment, he didn't remember anything.  
He pushed himself up for the floor, trying to figure out where he was, and he voiced the question aloud.

"Where am I?"

It echoed off the walls and down the corridor.  
This tiny room had just enough room for him to lay down across twice, and the only open end was the space in front of him, but it was barred by an iron grille.

"Can't you tell?" said a voice in the gloom, just as echoing as his own.

Aozora jumped and ventured toward the grille.

There were more voices, chuckling dryly, echoing and bouncing, rebounding off the dark, stone walls.  
It was so eerie and chilling that Aozora had to sit back on his haunches for a moment to figure it out.

There was a guard standing by his barred door with a long pole with a curved blade on the end, a very tall naginata.  
He was tall and burly with his signature grey uniform with golden tassels on his shoulders, and a yellow cloth tied around the top of the pole.

"You're in a prison for murder of a guard and...civilians." The way he said 'civilians' sounded like a sneer that made Aozora's fur prickle.  
"You are to be sentenced to death in a few months, as soon as they get thie mess cleaned up."

Aozora remembered then.  
The fighting, the screaming, the blood, the fear...

He'd killed someone...

But he still couldn't remember.  
The bump at the back of his head throbbed painfully, and he lay down on his back against the cold stone, hoping that it would numb the pain a little bit.

He staired up at the cobwebbed, shadowed ceiling. Sentenced to death.

Death...

The back of his eyes suddenly burned, turning everything dark for a moment...and then he sank altogether into the folds of sleep.

When he came back around again, everything was still quiet.  
Quiet, like death, he thought. Eyes, seeing beyond...all a mix of jumbled thoughts that ran through his head.

He sat up.  
The screaming, the blood and bile that he'd slipped upon, the minor scratched and bruises as the enemies hit him in passing...the crimson lights, the universe opening up to him...All of them dying, yelling, blood flying...

Valon...

Her eyes, clouding over.

No, like his father's, his mother's. Like Mina's. Like the rat's. Like everyone he'd killed by his own paw.  
The guard, trying to spear him on the end of the naginata. Why? To stop the fighting. To stop the killing, to end the pain.  
He was a young guy, perhaps new on the job, with little experience in handling the thing. If only he'd held it a little higher, he wouldn't have had his throat ripped out like the side of a cold tree.

Eyes...wide with shock, filmed as they began to see beyond themselves...

No...

He'd done it again. He'd ended countless lives, crippled countless others, and for what? For one person?  
One person that meant a lot to him, and it was all their fault!

But then, like Valon said, it wasn't entirely their fault. It was the way that they knew how, the way that had let them survive, put them above all the rest; we of the streets are no different than they of the richer classes.

But their eyes...her eyes...they haunted him...what they were looking at...

The line between this world and the next...

His eyes became hot, and sheer horror set in on him. He couldn't breathe, the panic was clutching at his throat, the cold was overwherlming him, freezing his limbs so that he couldn't feel anything...

Everyone present heard the bloodcurdling scream from the new prisoner in the middle of the corridor of cells.  
They all jumped or carried on, thinking that said individual was being tortured by one of the guards.  
Some of them came to their bars to peek out.

For a moment, there was silence in the gloom, and then the sound of someone sobbing.

Aozora had his arms wrapped around his knees, his face buried into his arms as the tears flowed freely from his hot eyes.

It was anguish that he'd never felt save for when he lost his parents. Not even Mina had ripped his heart from his body so forcefully before.  
Was this the punishment for his sins? To stay in this dark cell of his mind until he was finally released?  
At least I'll be with Valon again...Valon...  
He sucked in a breath and half-mouthed, half-spoke her name.

"I miss you, Valon..."

But there would be no one to save him now.  
These bars were wrought iron, and the grille was too small, only big enough for him to squeeze his head into and have it get stuck.  
The walls were solid stone. The only way out would be to have a guard escort him.

Aozora tilted onto his side in a ball and curled up.

When the guard outside his door, a different one that had changed shifts while he slept and was extremely jumpy after the scream, came to change his bedding and bring him food, but Aozora didn't touch it.  
He felt absolutely no will to live anymore, and vaguely contemplated on how they did it; how did they curl up and just decide to die?

His mind was blank as a peice of vellum or rice paper, save for the occasional incoherent jumblings that he'd mouth aloud to himself sometimes.

Vaguely, he could even hear the prisoners and guards talking and muttering.

"Dijyasee that new guy?"  
"The one that screamed a few days ago?"  
"He's lost it, mate. He won't eat nothin, don't say nothin', don't do nothin'. I think he's gonna end up like poor Raile, and die."  
"But Raile was a dog. Them an' wolves can decide when to die, can't they? That ain't neither."  
"Sure sounded like one when 'e yelled."  
"Mmm."

"Wot's he in for?"  
"Killin' Gabe Lun. The new kid an' all. Possibly ten others in that crowd. It took a whole bunch of us to get this kid down, but we finally hit him with a slingstone."  
"Just one?"  
"Yep. Thank gods for it too - we used up the rest on the the riot. All we had left were powder-pepper and salt bombs."  
"A berserker, eh?"  
"Aye."

Yes, he could hear them talking, whispering in the corners. Their gossip echoed softly on the walls and were collected by his ears, but he ignored them, trying not to be aware of the world around him and just sink into that place of memories or imagination, with the valley and river and peace...

The door swung open with a rattle or metal. The tall ferret guard, the one that had changed shifts, stood there with wide eyes and jerky posture, as though expecting an attack from the so-called "Berserker".  
"Get up," he said in his strongest voice, nudging the ball on the floor in the ribs.

Aozora hardly felt it.

"C'mon now, everyone in section 4 is leaving for the grounds for their exercise. Can't steam in the cell, y'know."

He nudged the inert young fox again, but he didn't move.  
The guard could see that he wasn't dead, for his chest still moved up and down with small, light breaths, and his eyes were open, blinking slowly every now and again.

Another guard shoved the younger one aside and stopped down. He wrenched Aozora's wrists from his body and let him hang from the ground like that while he began to shake him, but Aozora had gone completely limp, knees bent in an unconscious effort to stay on the ground.

"Get up, scruffbag," he said. "It's time to get inducted, whether you want it or not."

Aozora was dragged and kicked into the hallway, where he slumped back to the floor in a dazed trance.

The guards looked at each other and shook their heads in confusion.

The larger one reached for a cattle prod at his hip and whacked him across the shoulders.

Not even a twitch or bat of the eyelids.

"Is he a condemned prisoner?" whispered one to the tall, nervous guard. He nodded.

The hauled Aozora up until he was straight up, and this time, shook him hard.

Aozora was rudely brought back to this world. His eyes cleared, and he realized where he was.  
"That got his attention," snerked one. The big burly guard shook him again. "Now, enough of this nonsense. Start walkin'."

He looked down the long hallway, where others were beginning to file out with a dull roar of chatter. The end, where daylight in the open doorway seemed to be blinding, seemed ver far away, and yet, with a small shove from behind and th paw still on the scruff of his filthy neck, he began to walk.

One foot forward, then the other. One, two, one, two...like learning to walk all over again, staggering a little. The guards half pushed, half dragged him along until he got the hang of the pattern and began walking himself.

As he walked, he thought.  
He had nothing to lose, now, nothing to fight for. Fighting, in itself, was useless. But if he was to be a creature of sin now, he might as well live up to it. He didn't have to like killing.

But was that any excuse to do more of it? Just because he was free to do so?

No.

But survival was important, and judging by the wretched faces that he saw glaring at him as he passed by, the whole concept had just become much harder.

Aozora was lead into the bright light, and he wrenched one of his paws free from the guards holding him down to cover his eyes for a moment. They shoved him, but he ignored them, blinking tears from the sun.  
Never had it scorched him so hard, or felt so badly - and yet it was a huge relief from the cold cells.  
"Give him a moment for his eyes to adjust."

They did, slowly. The whole grounds were pavement and strewn sand, and with the sunlight reflecting off of them, it was like walking into a hall of mirrors open to the sun on its zenith.  
Not nice.

They walked down a small set of paved steps and to the side. He could see that where the steps joined, there was a raised platform that ran all aorund in a rectangular shape, where more doors to more cells were located.  
The grounds were sectioned off into different play areas, all fenced in by strange fences made of many chains that stretched in variating squares.  
Everyone milled about playing with a ball or talking or just doing nothing. There was a line for the roster and head-count over at the side of these steps the moment he stepped off that he was pushed into.

Next to some people that he'd seen before, he was one of the smallest people there, and the scrawniest.  
The lead official in his uniform of gray with a long, polished naginata and a red cloth tied to the pole of his, paced back and forth, surveying them with hooded, hawk-like eyes.  
Aozora thought it was a rat at first, but close inspection showed a really large mouse.  
He was decked out splendidly yet casually, and had a peircing gaze that made some of the inmates gulp and avert their eyes.

Some guards in leather aprons were bending over a small space in the platform and above that that kind of looked like a stable or barn, with plenty of hay and wooden items.  
Aprons...blacksmiths? Aozora wondered.  
It was then that he noticed that there were stakes with ropes over by them, and that a little ways out, some of the longer inmates were staring their way.

What really got his attention was that not only were they staring, most of them were, and with very hungry stares, as though anticipating something. They wer exchanging knowing glances and smirking, even grinning.

Aozora began to get a little nervous.

The person on the end of the line was called to go up to one of the stakes and "hug" on to it, and given a wooden cylinder to stick in his mouth.

A gag.

Aozora could not make head or tail of this until he suddenly saw something that made him put two and four together.

Several long, black pokers with funny-shaped ends, all red and orange from the fire and steaming.

For a second, Aozora's eyes crossed as he figured it out, and involuntarily, everyone put their paws to their ears as the prisoner at the post yelled through his gag. The pokers touched him, burned him on his back, and then a number above his elbow.

But it was over quickly.

"Your name is now #800, Banji," announced the Official. "Go and play."

A bucket of cold water splashed on his back, making him yelp, and then he spat out the gag and was led by the arm into a pen and locked in.

"Next!"

Shimatta, thought Kaneda.

He was thirteenth in line, and they were going by pretty quick.

"Your new name is now #812, Teri. Go and play."

Aozora was panting lightly when it was his turn. His legs felt full of lead as he walked up with jerky steps, the gournd being so flat that he tottered a little.

"Hug the post," was the command.  
Aozora knelt down and hung on to the post lightly, his hair standing up in anticipation as the poker came close to his back. He could feel the phantom heat already...

"Well," said the brander thoughtfully, "looks like y've already been branded with ink, for one so young, boy. Wouldn't wanna mess up that pretty paintin' on yer back now, would we?"

What was he talking about? Aozora blinked.

His confusion was suddenly turned into shock as the hot metal pressed into the top of his shoulderblades, twice.  
His teeth bit down on the wooden gag hard, but he didn't cry out in pain. The next poker went onto his left arm, just above his elbow, with the number 813 branded into his smooldering fur.

His shock increased as the splash of the cold water hit him, sending chills up his spine.

"Your new name is now #813, Kaneda," said the Official as the brander whispered in his ear.  
"Go and play."

And the pen was thrown open, and Aozora spat out the gag and walked inside.


	9. Chapter 7 Part 1

Chapter 7: The Black Fox (New Tactics: Adaptation)

Aozora is in the toughest prison colony in the country, and may have found a friend, but has to change his survival tactics a little for this new situation. Adaptation.

Fortunately for him, he had no time to look around the immense complex because at that moment, the officials called everyone to the section of the river reserved for quick bathing.  
"Sections four and five, hit the water!"

Several people shoved past him, and suddenly, he felt a small weight on his neck. His paws shot up to it to feel what it was, and from what he could tell, he was weaing a leather and metal collar.  
The guard above him, who had snapped it on, said, "There's no point in trying to take it off, either. If you lose it, you are punished on the spot and or executed."  
He slipped his claws under the black and silver band and steered him forward.

The prisoners from the said sections crossed to a small area in the gates - which were really huge, sanded logs with points at the top, slammed together with rope and resin - to where a part, a very small one or a very large stream, ran through. Two sluice gates could be seen at either end of the cut off area, one to his left and the other to his right, that prevented the prisoners from escaping, as well as letting the water flow through without filling up too much. A ring around the top showed signs of a lookout stand, and posted there were at least ten to twenty guards, each carrying either a long spear or naginata.  
The bottom was a series of black, flat, and smooth volcanic rocks arrangesd so tightly together that they formed the whole pit, and could be slippery in some areas. Several plants and water weeds stuck up along the false shore.

The guard released Aozora amongst the reeds.  
"Strip."  
Aozora flushed. He was used to it on the streets, when being nude really didn't matter as long as you didn't die, but this, somehow, was slightly embarassing.  
He slipped the tied red and yellow cloth on his hips off first, but it was hard and stiff with dried blood from the battle. He struggled with it for a moment, and then, when it was gone, he undid his breeches and bands on his wrists and legs.

As soon as he was nude, he stepped into the water and shivered. It was viciously cold.

The guard handed him a bar of soap on a cord and a rag and brush, then left. Aozora studied the curious white object.  
It was scented soap, a common village make. It wasn't the best, but he recognized it, when his mother would sit on the futon in her silken robes after taking a hot, steaming bath, fresh and smelling of vanilla and peonies...  
He dipped his tail into the water until it soaked up like a sponge, like he used to when he had a proper bathtub, and rinsed it out with one paw over the bar of soap.

What he hadn't counted on was for it to be so slippery. He held on to it as tightly as he could, but then someone bumped into him a bit too hard to be an accident, without an apology.

The others, all soaping up side-by-side in the knee-deep water, all snickered low, but he was sure that he'd imagined it.  
Sighing, he was almost bent to pick it up when he heard it again, with a mutter of "Fresh meat", unmistakeably.  
He straightened up again, looking around for the source of the jibes, but found nothing.

One black fox, about two others down to the right, was staring at him like the others. The emerald eyes caught his for a moment, then looked away indifferently. Aozora blushed harder, and bent to pick up the fallen bar of soap from the smooth rock bottom.

Something grabbed him from behind, and a heavy weight on his back nearly made him topple over. He overbalanced and fell forward on all fours, and looking over his shoulder, he was more than just surprised to find a larger male inmate on his back, and apparently not going to let go, either.

Imagine poor Ao's shock. Not only was it scary beyond his imagination, it freaked him out beyond the core.

"Wha -" was all that he could manage. His head was thrust down into the water, in which his snout became tangled in the reeds. It was like breathing through a filter; then his chest hit after it. If not for the plants, he wouldn't have had much of a chance against drowning.  
Then, to his horror, he felt his legs being pushed apart roughly, his tail thrown over his back. There was a hot breath on the side of his face, in his ear, and the arms around his aching ribs tightened...he struggled under the much larger male, paws slipping and skidding on the stones as he began to just rub against his backside, getting ready to -

Wham! SPLOOSH!

The arms were wrenched forcefully from his ribs, and he automatically sat back on his haunches, freeing his muzzle from the plants and sucking in ragged breaths of air.

He looked up and saw the black fox with his fist still raised, standing over the other inmate with cold, expressionless eyes.  
Like stones, thought Aozora, staring up with a partially open mouth, still panting for breath. Like emerald stones.  
The eyes glanced down at him, locked again, then turned to look at the out-cold inmate again. Aozora shivered involuntarily.

He knelt down (expertly, Aozora noticed) and picked up the soap by the cord, handing it back to him. Aozora took it, stunned, but still unable to utter anything other than, "Wha...?"  
The other only stared at him for a moment, and glared at the imate before returning to his spot - Aozora could have sworn that he heard him mutter under his breath with a barely audible snarl, " deleted -fucking homosexual..."

Aozora, completely confused now and yet grateful, snuck glances at the others to see how they accomplished this feat. He soaped the rag and brush and began scrubbing the back of his filthy neck and under his arms, his tail and legs and et cetera until he was covered in white suds. He sat down quickly in the water and began to wash his hair and face, scrubbing and dunking under until his hair was at least almost clean. At least the fleas were gone, since they jump when it came to water.

He then rinsed and washed out his clothes until they were clean enough, then rinsed them out and let them dry on the shore in the last few minutes given.

He stood back out and shook his fur, glistening drops of water splashing into the pool around him. Hanging the soap around his neck and following the others by placing the brush and rag down on the shore, he gathered up his clothes and followed the procession back to the yard.

He caught sight of the fox again.

Is he...staring at me on purpose?

But every time, he'd turn away or glare until he did.

Still rather creeped out, Aozora went with it, guessing there was still a lot that he didn't know, and probably never would, but it would be good to learn a little of it while he was here.  
About the black fox...well...have to find out, wouldn't he?

He smiled to himself.

The glances aimed at him were not those of lust or longing, that he could tell, but more like an almost apprehensive. There was no hesitation or fear whatsoever, but just cold and calculating. The stares that he gave could pin him to the wall, as though trying to figure out every inch of this new being.

-----------------------------

Arokk Garrason was one of the few tough guys that ran section four, or at least one of the many small groups.  
Kinjin, a very large ferret, ran the group, and everyone was in a type of mutual hierarchy, except for Garrason.

Arokk did not like being put into a hierarchy or anyone other than himself; he was a hierarchy of one. And yet, he knew that there was strength in numbers, and if you didn't fit in, you joined up with someone quick or else you had it the worst.

As of now, he sat in the little shade provided by the tall log walls of the complex on the north-eastern side, arms behind his head and legs crossed nonchalantly as his expressionless, almost bored gaze roved lazily around the stumping figures of the prison grounds in their section.

His fur was jet black, dyed, so it didn't help in all the sunlight bearing down upon him like a pretty face; his hooded eyes were automatically shaded, thank the gods, or else he might never be able to see straight. The sun baking the ground made steam rise up all over the place, so badly that it looked like the whole place were miraging or underwater.

His clothing were baggy, loose black breeches held up by only an old braided hemp cord. He was bare chested and barefoot, and had blue rings, two each, around both wrists. The inducting marks were two slashes on the top of his shoulderblades and his number, 715, branded into his arm.

The two slashes upon the shoulder blades were, in the official category of symbolization for the country, supposedly resembling the fallen angel of death when his wings were removed. This was a very special branding mark, reserved only for the ballistic murderers with at least some consciences that were to be sentenced to death.

The mark only hurt when he stretched the skin a little too hard, but not much, for it was long since healed. Arokk had been in this prison for several months, and his death sentence wasn't for another few months, due for him to carry out his sentence and have enough time for the officials to clean up the constant messes always happening in the city and their prisons, as well as warring with the neighboring country for its gold and slave trade.

Arokk thought as he stared up at the bluer part of the sky, the part that was not being blocked by sunlight.  
That new kid in the complex. He was a puzzle, looking slightly younger than he, though hardly old enough to even pick up a weapon; but why was the murdering mark upon his back too, and even yet, with those tattoos in the 'other language'...  
Beasts branded with the Fallen Angel's mark were to keep their names, but only if they were known. What type of person was this really? He didn't even look able to stand, less known be able to kill anyone.

Arokk smiled grimly to himself. Perhaps a worthy opponent, or just some kid in the wrong place at the wrong time...

Then why had his eyes been drawn to him? What was that instinctive force, the one that told him that danger was approaching and predicted every other thing in the environment on impulse that told him that there was definitely something different about this one, that set him apart from all the others? Only so many were branded with the mark. Quite a few, but only a selected few from the sub category for the condemned to death: the Fallen Angel, being the lead, the Slave of the Spree, being the next one beneath, which was reserved for the mentally insane that killed because they couldn't help it; the Slayer-Slayer, being the insane that killed for the fun of it, and then, of course, the Accidental Demons, being self-explanatory enough to say that these were the ones that had killed on accident or for survival.

But then, that's what we're all fighting for, isn't it? thought Arokk.

All under the "Daemon", or "Youkai", or maybe "Oni" category.  
Some of these people shouldn't even be in here, thought he, but he double-thought on the new kid - Kaneda. He shouldn't judge, for even the blue butterflies, no matter how beautiful and innocent looking that they were, could still bite with a stinging that would make even the toughest inmate whimper.

Hmph, Arokk thought, rising to his feet and walking out onto the complex.

---------------------

Aozora stared around at the complex, taking in his surroundings.  
It was all hard, packed down dirt with grains of sand, like a desert. There were areas ringed off with paint for sports and exercise.

There were so many people, most of them three times taller and wider than he would ever be, adults and younger ones with fists the size of castle bricks or ammunition baskets().  
He edged cautiously around, afraid to even walk into the ringed off areas without something dropping on him, looking for a spot that he could sit in alone...  
The sun was beaming down on some of the tallest vertical logs in the area, casting a small space of shadow, but someone was already there.

And leaving too, as he watched. This one didn't look to be much taller than himself, more like Asura, and if a fight came to, he might be able to escape. Aozora had no intent on fighting anyone - there was too much that could happen.

As he walked overto take the space that the other fox had left, they passed by each other. Aozora's heart sped up, and once again, his senses opened, though not quite as well as they had during the battle.  
Something about this particular person, his...aura...that made his hair stand up. Surely, if he walked by any other inmate, the same thing would not happen, though they could probably defeat him too; but this was different. If Aozora had any say in it, as a philosophical or poetic intent, this would be the only person to be able to kill him - as well as bring him back from the dead.

The slowed down moment in time passed, much to his relief, and he flopped down into the shade with an exhale of air.  
The sun was so hot...and he was thirsty.  
It burned at his throat, made him open his mouth slightly and start panting for all his worth to suck in the air for conditioning inside his muzzle, as a canid will do in the heat.  
His tongue lolled out of one side of his mouth, and he leaned his aching back against the wall and closed his eyes. The heat was draining him, sucking him dry, the sun absorbing every last bit of moisture that he could hardly grasp onto within his own body until he was as dry a peice of long grass.  
He sprawled out his limbs and fell into a sort of doze as a last attempt to keep cool.

He opened his eyes into slits, the light pressing down upon his lids. The figures on the complex began to become blurry and hazy, the air shimmering, and the talk and shouts became fainter and fainter until they were but jeering whispers.

"It's so hot, Valon," he unwittingly murmured out loud.

He knew that she'd probably not hear him, but maybe there was a chance, if she was in the afterlife. Just saying it out loud, like he used to, was good enough.  
Unbidden tears sprang to his dry eyes, and one of them fell down his cheek. He reached out with his tongue to catch it. Only water, salt water. Nowhere near good enough to drink - it would probably just dry him out faster.

Gahh...like a freaking desert...

It's so hot and dry and my mouth is drying out and I'm drying out and I feel like just going to sleep and dying an' maybe I'll see you sometime an' we can go and play and be happy where it's cool and refreshing and don't have to worry about drying out like this...

SPLASH!

Aozora sat up abruptly as a bucket of ice cold water hit him in the face.  
Standing there, holding it, was none other than the pine marten branded #812, Teri. He was grinning, with yellow teeth and warm brown eyes.  
At first, Aozora had the impression that he was a moving blur, but that was only because of his sandy-colored fur.  
"Are you alive, scrawny-one?"  
"Uh huh," drawled Aozora, feeling as though his mouth was about to turn into the ground itself. Teri sat down cross-legged in front of him and passed him a canteen.  
"You bring your own bag, here," he said musingly. "This here canteen was made from a cow stomach. Super strong fiber, hardens out in the sun. Rub some wax on it, let it dry, and paint it however you like, even reinforce it with some leather if you have to. It's dead useful for just about anythin', from herbs to liquids."  
Aozora put the canteen to his lips and drank. It was cold, if not one-hundred percent clean, water from the river.

He nearly choked as it went down, for his throat was closing rapidly in the arrid atmosphere. Teri clapped him on the back. "Get that down the right way, now, an' take it slow. No use in drowning yourself when I just saved you, is there?"  
"Wh-who are you?" Aozora coughed out.  
"The name's Terrace, but they apparently shortened it to Teri. I'm in for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. It makes it worse that it was that rich place up the street on the south eastern side that's run by the government, like an inn or somesuch, and it was the mayor's son staying in there. Hehe, he nearly deleted himself when I pointed the sword at him..."  
Aozora gave him the canteen, and he stoppered it and slung it over his shoulder, then flopped down beside him.

"So, new guy, huh?"  
"Yeah," said Aozora under his breath. "I'm number 813."  
"Right after mine!" Teri exclaimed brightly, patting him on the arm. Aozora winced as the paw came into contact with the branding mark, but Teri appeared not to notice and went on.  
"I heard your name called - Kaneda, was it?"  
"Mm-hmm. They let me keep it."  
Teri's gaze became hard.  
"They let you? Turn around."

But Aozora was too stiff to sit up straight, so Teri grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him forward to see over to his back.  
"Wow...a Fallen Angel, huh? What did you do?"  
"I was in that fight in the city square and killed several people and a guard."  
Teri's eye looked over him, and Aozora knew what he was thinking. He didn't look old enough to even pick up a spear.  
"So...you're condemned to death, eh?"  
"It seems so." He put his arms around his knees. Somehow, just saying the phrase "condemned to death" didn't quite hit him as hard as it should have. Perhaps it was some reason that he could not explain, wherein just a few days ago, perhaps hours ago, it would have really mattered.  
"You have nothing to lose?" Teri ventured. Aozora shrugged. "Maybe not."

There was a silence between the two for a moment, in which Aozora noticed that the sounds of the prison complex had come back full force, and he had to flatten his ears at the sudden change in volume.  
Teri shook his good shoulder.  
"Come on, we need to introduce you to the rest of the crew," he said, standing up and helping Aozora to his feet.  
His legs were rather unsteady, and he leaned against the wall for support, stretching first one, and then the other. When he felt able to move, he followed Teri to a group of other inmates inside a painted white ring, grouped around two people in the middle.

"What are they doing?" Aozora asked, a little nervous. Teri answered over his shoulder, "Probably playing knit-ball."  
"Ah," said Aozora. Knit-ball was a game commonly played on the backstreets, and he was still learning, though nowhere near good enough yet.  
Sure enough, the group was surrounding the two players in the middle, who were bounicng small balls of knitted yarn and beads off of everything on their body except their front paws, and everyone was cheering or counting down or holding their breath.  
The player with red fur, a rather attractive rat, was the first to drop out after eight solid minutes. The one with the black fur -

Aozora stopped.  
"What's the matter?" said Teri.  
"N-nothing," stammered Aozora, and Teri led him by the arm the rest of the way and announced to the cheering crowd, "We have another new kid, people!"  
Everyone turned around at once so fast that Aozora jumped.  
He had the sudden odd feeling that he was being pierced by many tiny knives as the others eyes sized him up and looked him over. His mouth opened just a little to start panting again.  
The leader of the group, Kinjin, stepped up to him and began to circle.  
"So, what's your name?"  
"Aozora," he said, wishing his voice wasn't so high in the presence of this prisoner that towered over him, but Teri cut in. "His name's Kaneda now, according to the inductors."  
Aozora stood as still as he possibly could.  
He heard Kinjin stop for a moment behind him, and his hair stood up on the back of his neck as though eyes stared him down.  
"You have Fallen Angel marks..." he muttered, and Aozora was sure that he detected just the tiniest hint of doubt in his voice. He chanced a look over at the black fox, who was also staring at him, but this time did not avert his eyes. He must be curious on the outcome of this too.  
"Why do you have these on your back?"  
Aozora tried not to hang his head, but kept it up. "Because I killed several people and a guard in the fight in the square."  
"Do you belong to the Black Harlequins?" spat Kinjin harshly.  
"N-no. I belong to the Northpoints."  
"You do know that they no longer exist, right?"  
Aozora's eyebrow twitched at the boldness of this beast. "Yes."  
"Final question: what do these mean, on your back?"  
"What?"  
"The tatoos. Don't play dumb."  
Aozora risked a box around the ears by peering over his shoulder as far as he could, and only saw blurry, blue marks.  
"I don't know," he said, actually curious as what the guard had said, and how he knew his name.  
Perhaps it was the thoughtfulness in his voice that made Kinjin let go the topic. It sounded as though he never even knew they were there in the first place.  
"Well then, Kahnny," he said, unknowingly calling him by Valon's pet name for him and making Aozora's eyebrow twitch again, "welcome to the group."  
The other all cheered and pulled him into their center with Teri, who began to laugh like a maniac.  
"Woohoo! Who won the Knit-ball contest?"  
"Arokk, of course," said the defeated red rat, nodding his head towards the black fox.


	10. Chapter 7 Part 2

Chapter 7 Part 2

Arokk, thought Kaneda to himself. So that's who you are.

A shadow blocked the sky for a moment, which made everyone look up. Aozora followed their gaze, able to move and thankful for their eyes moving off of him.  
A bird, a very large pigeon with speckles on its body, was circling and fluttering one wing that hardly worked, trying to find a place to come in for a landing.  
Aozora noticed that everyone was silent and tense, as though waiting for it to touch ground.  
Lower...and lower...he had the feeling that everyone was about to explode from the waiting...

...And then it landed.  
Like a ferocious pack of wild animals, everyone in section three, four, and five - and the three other sections above them, thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen, all surged towards section four, howling like madbeasts.  
Aozora hung back with Teri and watched.  
The pigeon had scarce touched the ground when the prisoners leapt at it and chased it around the center of the section, joined by others slipping through the rope gates, when it was pounced upon.  
An immediate fight broke out from everyone trying to get a peice. Blood, fur, and feathers flew in all directions; thuds of punches and savage screams of delight or pain rang out.  
Aozora was briefly reminded of the gang battle, but the tone was different. It was...greedy.  
He noticed that several had stayed behind, say about half of their group and Arokk. Kinjin was already in the fray with the rest of his followers.  
"Um...what are they..." he began, but Teri only shook his head and looked at him. "If you want some good food, you'd better join in over there, though in all wise words, you'd probably do better to stay alive over here than in that ruckus."  
Kinjin came trotting back with a larg bloody lump of flesh in his arms.  
"Come on, crew, eat up," he said, dumping it on the ground. "I've already ate my fill."  
The returning group laughed at their leader's joke and started ripping into it.  
Aozora took a large pawful and quickly backed out, like Teri and the others had. He tasted it.

It wasn't abnormal to eat raw meat - after all, it was almost the only thing to eat on the streets. The bird went down in great chewed and swallowed lumps of feathers, bones, and flesh because he could not hold back.  
He understood their hunger. You could wake up in the morning with your stomach in its usual place, sticking to your spine, and the hunger raging so badly that you just want to curl up and go to sleep and never wake up and eventually die...  
The hunger that drove the others to eat whatever they could get their claws on.

Licking his paws from the blood and juice and any spare remnants of meat, he began to clean up and lick the blood off of his face.  
Several officials were rushing in with small clubs and their spears and naginatas to break up the group. The other inmates scattered immediately back to their own section, the only remaining mark left by the bird being hardly a bloody smear on the ground, and a few feathers.

----------------------------

The officials rounded up everyone and started calling lunch by sections.  
The gate to section four was opened, and everyone piled out in line and p the stairs, and into the many changing hallways, but on the eastern side.

The mess hall was enormous, with two bridges up towards the ceiling with pacing guards. As Aozora walked in, he could see the flash of light against an iron holder full of darts, in case of trouble.

The new prisoners sat at the tables far in the back, next to the big bullying groups that were very low in the hierarchy. Aozora and Teri went to the small bars and grabbed trays, in which they were given a cheap wooden bowl full of gray gruel, a biscuit or two, and a lump of some stew concoction that smelled terrible.  
To Aozora, this was more than he'd been able to eat anywhere, even in the dojo, where it was just a bowl of rice. He dipped his claw into the steaming mess and licked it off. Pure bliss.  
Some people were staring at him kind of funny, for some of them were not used to eating such low food, and turned up their noses at it. Aozora ate his on the way back to the new inductee tables, and looked for a free space.

When he found one, he was nearly done with his meal, in which he'd licked the last of the slop from the bowl and was halfway through the gruel.  
He sat back and licked his lips. That was some good food.

Slop - the parts at the butcher's that they don't use, ie. feet, fat, blood, eyeballs, guts, maybe some good parts if you're lucky, and some of the parts that they use to make glue. Usually fed to canids for their hardy stomachs, and the nutrition.

"Kisama," said a very, very large dog, gripping his shoulder with strong paws and nails that needed clipping.  
Aozora froze.  
"Nametonka? Get the hell out of my seat!"  
Aozora felt himself go airborne and collide into someone walking between the aisles of tables.  
The other person's tray fell, and once again, he was lifted into the air and thrown into someone else.

This person was sitting down, and promptly turned around to fling him as hard as possible into the person sitting across at the other table.

knit-ball - medieval hacky-sack  
Kisama - the rudest way of saying "you".  
Nametonka - "Want me to kick your "?  
Oma Korense - "Prepare to die".

Everyone stood up at once.  
"Fight, fight, fight, fight -"  
The black fox, whom he had just run in to, stood up suddenly and grabbed him by the collar.  
Aozora, dazed, felt his feet lift the floor for the fourth time.  
"Oma korense," he snarled, and Aozora's ears lay back to his head. There was no escaping it this time, he was going to die -

Phht! Phhht! Phht!

The darts raced out and peppered the crowd, and once again, everyone scattered back to their seats or fell to the floor.  
The black fox's fist was still raised.  
Aozora bent his knees, and the two went down with his weight, until Aozora was kneeling, looking up at him, and their faces were mere inches away.

"Garrason! Kaneda!" called one official, jogging up with his naginata at the ready. "You know the rules - no fightin'!" He glanced down at Aozora.  
"Ah, a new one, eh?"  
Aozora only flicked his ear, not daring to tear his eyes away from Arokk.  
"Well, I wouldn't expect you to know on the first day, but this is your punishment - two weeks in hot box solitary after twenty lashings each, and half rations.  
You are not to join in with any of the others until your punishment is carried out, understand?"  
Great. In troubleon his first day.  
Arokk released him with a shove as the official turned to deal with the other miscreants.

Kaneda would have quailed under the look that Arokk was giving him, so he stared back with the same blank expression.  
Fine. If you're going to be that way over an accident and stare at people, I'll stare right back.

The heat was unbearable.  
Centered in the middle of the complex, the Hot Box Solitary Area was exactly what it was nicknamed - a hot box.  
It was several rooms on a raised platform above the complex, shorter than the walls, in which the prisoners would be jammed side by side, separated by at least hald a foot of solid concrete.  
Four concrete walls and a solid concrete door with slits seven feet up, giving a 2.5 by 1/5 foot space of room to just stick your snout out of.  
Iron and copper plates were imbedded within the walls to suck up the sunlight outside and fill the place up like a furnace, setting off fumes that could cause a beast to hallucinate.  
Indeed, Aozora sat on a stone bench, paws cuffed in front of him by iron shackles, and four iron weights upon his collar.  
It was so heavy, and so hot...  
He leaned his back up against the wall behind the bench that was not occupied by a hot metal plate and let his mouth hang open. Long tendrils of drool and air conditioning fluid dripped out of his mouth and nose as he drew in breaths of fouled, hot air and fumes.  
Every breath made the back of his eyeballs buzz with electricity, so that every time he tried to drift off, he'd jerk awake again. It was endless and frustrating.  
He paced the cell, barely three steps across and as wide on all fours to relieve the building tension, but it didn't work. Nothing worked. If he tried to breathe outside those terrible grilles, he'd probably burn himself, and goodness knew that he'd had enough of that.

The black fox had been placed beside his cell on his right.  
As Aozora leaned against his wall gingerly (it had a copper plate) and tried to hear what was going on on the other side.

Absolute silence.

"Um...hey," he called through the wall, hoping the metal would amplify his voice.  
No sound.  
He waited, then tried again, this time gasping for air. "Hey..."

Still no answer.

The heat and fumes were making him dizzy, but he knew that he was still sane on the other side.  
Shackled, beating the metal feebly, he began to yell in panic and fatigue.  
"Heh...hehh...hey...hey...!" he yelled, his voice going lower and lower.  
Such was the dizziness that he overbalanced and fell into the hot copper plate, but as badly as it burned, he could not find the energy to lift himself from it.  
He sank his claws into the metal and slid down it as the fog in his mind became stronger, thicker, more persistent to drag him down and have him come and play...

Arokk leaned against a corner of the wall beside that new runt Kaneda's cell, arms folded as he sulked.  
In truth, he wasn't actually sulking, but in deep thought.

He'd been in solitary plenty of times before. In fact, he liked the fumes that made him high, perhaps high enough to kill himself without pain some day.

Hardly anything to lose.

How long had it been since he'd been with the Sinopa Clan? When he existed in that beautiful land where the Warriors were worshipped and cherished, and the Elders wise as the trees; where the arts had once flowed fluently through his veins when he became of age at twelve and began his journeys now?

After those years of wandering with his mentor, and he'd ended up a slave, and finally here in Jatore, the Jewel of the Empire - as a theif, beggar, an urchin.  
Working for someone even lower.

Arokk gazed at his paws, which looked distilled and shimmering in the evaporation waves of heat.

Wasted. Training nearly useless now, and forgotten.

Why was he traveling in the first place? It had to be more than boredom - he'd hardly been able to live the life as an adult in his clan before he started his journeying.  
And now, it had come to this, several months in prison and a few more to go before he was executed.

Why did they let the condemned live like this in this stinking hell? Wouldn't they already learn their lesson on the way to the Afterlife, to Dark Forest's Gates?

Arokk was brought out of his thoughts by the younger fox's voice coming from the room on his left.  
He tried to scowl, but couldn't. It was the same fox that had bumped into him that day, but he knew it wasn't his fault - he was just having a bad day, and hadn't even fully realized that it was he.  
Of course, he had to be hard on him. There was something about this fox that made his hair stand up and put him on his guard. No other beast in the prison, as rough as they were, could do that.

By the sounds of it, it sounded like he was going through the first few stages of the hallucinations. The heat was unbearable, and even he could feel himself backing, for his fur was dyed dark, and the sun took pleasure in warming it beyond its need.  
He slid down the wall until he was in a sitting position, and pitied the younger fox next door. Already, one could hear the screams of the other inmates from either sides as they too were assaulted by the hallucinations.  
There was no fighting it.  
Arokk concentrated on closing his eyes, and when he did, they remained closed - and did not open again for the rest of the day. 


End file.
